Are You Afraid?
by littledarkangelhippie
Summary: "Are you afraid?" Gaara will always ask this question, no matter what life they're living. Whether they're secret spies or a normal couple, or even two assassins. And Sakura will never quite answer honestly, because fear is only a state of mind. At least she hopes so... Random stories based off that one question.
1. The Abyss

**A.N.****: I've started three new projects as I try to finish my other stories. The first will be based off the Wizard of Oz, because I watched that new movie and was inspired by its lovely images but weak story (that's not to say you shouldn't watch it, that's just my honest opinion). The second will be an alternate universe mystery thing that includes a bunch of stories and a uncharacteristically serious Naruto as a detective, (both will be put up some time next month when I figure out where the stories will lead to). And this, the third. **

**This will be a collection of short stories featuring my [now] favorite couple (next to Naruto and Hinata). These are all based off one single line that could mean just about anything and lead to just about anything. Some will be sweet, others sad, some happy, others dark, some romantic, some scary... But, all the same, the line is always spoken by Gaara, directed toward Sakura, and it will mostly always appear at the beginning, if not in the middle or by the end. **

**The idea started in class one day as I was suddenly attacked by the inspiration panda, mauled to a metaphorical death and left there to bleed out words across a paper as the clocked ticked and people silently read diligently around me like I was supposed to. This first chapter isn't even the one I first wrote. I'll mention it once I do. Some of these will most likely be shorter than the things I usually write, which will be difficult for me. I set a goal for myself to write _at least_ ten pages of a chapter and then edit out stuff that is irrelevant to me. **

**This one, I'll explain at the bottom.**

**Each chapter has a different genre.**

**This genre: Friendship and hurt/comfort (in a way).**

**Disclaimer****: I don't own ****_Naruto._ Too much power over the minds of the possible millions that are fans of it. **

**The Abyss **

"Are you afraid?"

She gripped onto the very edge of the bar, peering over the edge and letting out a shaky breath, trepidation washing through her very core and shooting down her spine. Blackness swallowed up whatever end there was to the hole they stood over, and she was half tempted to drop a single coin to see how deep it truly went, if only to bide her time just a little longer. The metal plate beneath her was steady, sturdy, but she could see between the gaps, the darkness she so wanted to avoid. She was afraid. Every muscle in her body told her to step away from the abyss, every vein thrummed with cold fear, every bone in her body was shaking. But if there was anything she was certain to never back down from, it was a challenge.

"Of course not," she answered almost confidently.

He looked away, feeling his lips twitch, not quite in humor. She was far too stubborn. This was a childish game she could easily back down from, but from the look in her emerald eyes, that wasn't about to happen. The skirt of her beige dress swayed with the wind, two trembling hands reaching up to tie her pink hair into a ponytail, leaning back against the bar immediately to keep herself as far from the edge as possible. Her flats tapped lightly on the plate, as if readying for a run, before she settled back down and continued to stare down at the great hole as if it were a many-headed monster. Perhaps, to her, it was. They'd grown up knowing nothing but the horror stories the elders told them about this place, fearing for the worst and dreaming up beasts that growled in the night and waited for one of them to fall down the hole and into their waiting mouths.

"I don't believe you," he murmured. This girl had never been the bravest, always at the back of every group and shaking her head whenever one of them did something foolish. But the moment one of them dared her to do the same, she never hesitated to do so. Never the bravest, but neither the coward. He almost respected that, if not for the petulant way she handled things so often, pouting her pink lips and narrowing her green eyes. He knew no one else could see it, not from how far away they stood, watching wide-eyed and mouths agape, but she was terrified beyond all reason, damn right near hyperventilating. He blinked and turned his gaze up to the sky, where the blue was faint and streaked with smoke, pollution becoming thicker and thicker as the days passed; he couldn't remember a day where it was perfectly clear and bright.

In their small group of troublemakers, he was the only one that never once showed his true emotions. If they ever challenged his ever-stoic mannerisms, he always proved to the rest just how much he could do, and they always nodded in appreciation. Never once had he shown any fear of any kind, never demonstrated his anxiety, never displayed his concern. Because, for the most part, he never actually felt anything. Even now, as he watched the girl he'd known since childhood peer over the side of a deep, dark chasm, perhaps seeing the very last moments of her life, he didn't feel a single thing.

And yet...

_This could be the cruelest joke_, he thought, eyeing the rest of their group as they hid behind rocks and cans, awestruck and every bit as scared as she was. He didn't find it amusing. They weren't any older than thirteen, still young enough to be clueless, but not clueless enough to be down right stupid. And this could've been the dumbest thing they'd done so far.

Yes, they might've stolen a decoration or two from a house. Yes, they might've spray painted that wall outside of the school. Yes, they might've thrown water balloons at a pedestrian or two, maybe even four. But never something of this degree, never something this reckless.

He found himself drawing away from her, closer to the abyss. He was certain there was no way she would live through it. It had an ending—everything did—but it was so far down he could never hope to see it.

"You can still back down," he said, beginning to question the logicality of all of it. What person in their right mind would do this?

She shook her head. "I need to do this."

Her mind brought up the expressionless face of the boy she was doing this for, black eyes staring back at her in annoyance. She grit her teeth and clenched her fists. This wasn't for _her_, it was for _him_. If this could prove to him just how strong she could be, then she would do it. Anything to make him notice her for more than the split seconds he allowed her of his time.

But still, the red-haired boy beside her was the only one who had bothered to accompany her. He was the only one standing by her side, unwittingly easing her nerves, even telling her she didn't have to do it. She'd never spoken much to him, not more than a few words that were more out of politeness than anything, finding him intimidating in his intense gaze and detached comments. Yet it seemed he was the one true friend she had then, him being the only one there to witness her do something surely lethal and borderline insane. He was the only one that would be able to claim seeing the scared look in her eyes as she jumped, the way she trembled before she took those last steps. The only one that would be able to relive the last few moments before her fall.

When she looked at him, he didn't seem particularly thrilled at the idea. He didn't seem frightened or worried. He didn't seem bored either. Just thoughtful and faintly calculating. As if he were measuring the height neither of them could guess and deciding her chances of survival. By the way his eyes lowered, she figured they were pretty slim.

"Is there anything you would like me to say?"

She knew what he meant, and she only shrugged, trying to push away the distress building in her stomach. He looked at her for a moment, pallid eyes pensive and dark, before he looked out toward the other side of the hole, where trees and green was thick and inviting. And dangerous all the same.

"You're a smart girl and I admire your hard work. You have the potential to be anything you want," he mumbled, wondering what he would say to her parents now that she gave him the affirmative to. He didn't know her all that well. "I will miss your..." He paused on that thought, searching deep within himself for something honest to say. She wasn't rude, had never been unkind to him, was quite well-mannered for her age and background—from what he knew of it, at least—and had never once left him behind when they were up to no good. Though, no, they had never talked much, she had never ignored him. And that, he supposed, was something he would surely miss. "Your kindness," he finally murmured sincerely.

She might've heard the truthfulness of it, the little change of tone he had in the middle, but she chose not to pay it any mind. Him being her was enough for her. She stepped forward, footfall silenced by the thinness of her shoes, and once again stared the blackness right in the face. She took tiny steps.

She'd grown up in the dirt like all the rest of them, but she'd been one of the lucky ones. She, at least, knew her father. She'd been raised by both her parents and at least had nice enough clothes to wear on the best of days.

Another step.

The boy she loved didn't feel the same. He was of a richer part of town and had had better fortunes than they. He would never look at her and find her lovely because she was a rat where he was a mighty lion. But at least she shared that in common with all the rest of her friends.

Another step.

Her best friend had died in an accident. It wasn't supposed to happen, something that occurred by chance and had had a once in lifetime probability of actually transpiring. Nobody had thought it would've happened. But, there it was. She had slipped on a rock on a rainy day, down upon wires they weren't supposed to go near but had never listened because that's just how they were, those troublemakers she had fit in with so easily. That was when she began to question herself and her choices.

Another step.

She was made fun of because of her appearance. Bright green eyes and bright pink hair. Who was she to show up with _such _brilliant colors? Who was she to interfere with the never ending boring browns and grays and blacks of this society? She fit right in with that Naruto character and his group of hoodlums. And that was where she had found herself, biting her lip whenever they created mishap and trying not to cover her eyes and run when they got in trouble. What was that look of disappointment in her father's eyes when an old lady they had disturbed dragged her to her home? She had never seen it before. What about that foreign emotion on her mother's face that made her look away so quickly? She had never caused so much trouble before. And she began to regret everything.

Another step—

It was sudden.

The next step was _supposed _to land on the plate, just like the others, but it didn't. Her heel slipped over the slightly rounded edge of the plate, and her body jerked forward immediately. Her hands flailed out to catch onto _something_, and her other knee bent and gave in to her weight and gravity yanking her down where she didn't want to go. The wind rushed past her ears and a mixture of panic, horror, and shock split through her body. Her breath caught and her eyes were wide, mind blank for just that second.

_No, _she thought, the black hole just seconds from swallowing her whole, feeding the beasts down below that waited patiently, _hungrily_, for her. _No, I don't want this_. And the realization that she was a complete idiot dawned on her a moment too late.

Her mouth opened to scream, watching it all unfold before her, heart frozen, world still.

And a hand caught her ankle, yanking her to a stop, hanging upside down. Her hands grasped at the air uselessly, trying to swallow while all the blood from the adrenaline rushed to her head and made her eyes squeeze shut in pain, gasping when she finally remembered how to breathe. She did not want to open them, afraid to look the chasm straight in the eye like she had done just seconds before. Her heart hammered against her chest, tears spilling from her tightly shut eyes, burning along her forehead as her mouth opened again in a loud, horrified scream.

He blinked as he realized he had moved without thinking, gripping her ankle in his hand as he knelt over the side, his other hand firmly holding the edge of the plate. He swallowed down his fear and wonder, amazed that he could feel anything this strong at all, and let out a shuddering breath. He had nothing to say to justify his actions, nothing to explain why he had saved her. Sure, they were friends, but if their other friends had not bothered to even stay by her side, then what right did he have saving her life?

"You didn't answer my question," he muttered, watching her fingers claw at air, panicking there in his hold. Her scream had cut off with his voice, and she was left panting, trying to keep still for him to pull her up. Then again, he was sure she was uncertain whether he would or not. Since when had anyone in their lives ever been compassionate toward them? And why start now?

"What question?" she rasped, utterly breathless and helpless. He could let her go, have the entertainment of watching her fall down the rest of the way, a small figure in a tight beige dress disappear down a big black abyss where he would never see her again. But he didn't. And he couldn't quite say why.

Perhaps he really would miss her kindness. Where would he be without it?

"You lied. You were afraid." It was a pathetic excuse and he knew that she knew that, but she didn't call him out on it. She was silent for a few moments and then let out a shaky laugh, completely inappropriate considering her current position. Literally. That dress was far too short.

"Yes," she admitted, smiling despite how so very _scared _she really was. And how relieved.

He pulled her up, sliding back to sit and catching her knee to haul her up faster, wrapping an arm around her waist and helping her climb back onto level ground. When they finally stepped back onto the cliff, she let out a long sigh.

"I knew you wouldn't do it!" a boy said from behind Naruto's glistening blue eyes. They all moved as a crowd and headed back toward town, leaving her with the stoic red-haired boy that had saved her life.

"We won't mention this again," she murmured. "But thank you."

He turned his gaze back up toward the sky. Never in all his years had he seen it look clear, but there was a fine, thin streak of the blue he only ever saw in the eyes of those of their group, rare and cast out of regular society. It was almost lovely. "Yeah," he mumbled back.

They walked together up the little hill and toward town, where mischief was being spilled like milk across a tabletop, by a group of kids too old to be clueless and young enough to be stupid.

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: Short, right? Pisses me off.**

**This takes place in an alternate universe where pollution has overtaken the wild and the wild has become too toxic for mankind. They live in a small patch of safe earth divided by some holes created by violent sinkholes a long time ago. This back story is interesting but somewhat unnecessary. I think I somewhat summarized what their lives were like. **

**They're all street rats causing trouble and somehow Sakura had ended up getting sucked into it. And, yes, Gaara is supposed to be from a rich family, too, but he's also an outcast like the rest of them. So, they grew up together. I hope that makes sense. Because next chapter will have nothing to do with this.**

**Please review and tell me what you think. Like I said, this is a project. Which means **_**experiment.**_


	2. The Demon

**A.N.****: Well, second chapter.**

**I admit it's easier to write random short stories than a long, composed story with individual chapters. I'm sleepy though and I have plans today, so I'm not looking forward to anything. I'm already planning out the next chapter though, and I'm telling you now that these have no order whatsoever. They will be sporadic and polar opposites from one another. At least, that's what I'm beginning to realize.**

**Genres: Romance and angst. Nothing graphic enough to be horror or supernatural.**

**There's going to be a bitter sweetness to this. Some religious stuff is mentioned.**

**Disclaimer****: Don't own ****_Naruto._ It'd be creepy.**

**The Demon**

"Are you afraid?"

It was a whisper in the dark, spoken harshly near her ear, making her shiver just a little harder. She felt the wall press against her back, her fingers press against the icy concrete, as she tried to move away, at least to put _a little _more space between them. If only just an inch or two. Her eyes moved across an expanse of simple shadows she could not distinguish, looking over his shoulder to avoid those eyes of his. They would undo her, she knew that by now. Nothing got past them, not even the tiniest of things. They watched and observed and were cold and unfeeling.

Just like him.

"No," she murmured, but they both knew that was a lie. How could someone shake so hard and not be scared? Why was her heart pounding so hard? The types of things that could easily be explained if she _just let it go_. But she wasn't the type to give up so easily. Not like this. He made no move to hurt her, but when he brought up his hand to touch her cheek, where a twinkle of a liquid crystal caught his perceptive eyes, she flinched away. His hand might've frozen, and he might've pulled away, but he couldn't remember the last time he was ever close enough to touch her. And so he let his fingernails graze her cheek, catching the warmth on the surface of them and suppressing the urge to dig them into her skin and watch her blood well up beneath them.

He was a violent creature by heart, and he knew that would never change, no matter how much he wished it would. His eyes glowed inhumanly in the dark, and his teeth were far too sharp to be natural. His skin was unhealthily pale and his body trembled with a need he would not verbalize. It burned in him, stronger now that she was mere centimeters away, her floral scent clouding around him. He wanted to pull her into his arms and bury his nose in her hair, breathe her in like it was his very last breath. But he wanted to also sink his teeth into her as far as he could and tear her apart until she was mere tatters of limp, useless flesh and muscle on the floor.

It sickened him beyond all reason.

He wanted to be close to her, he wanted to touch her, he wanted to hold her, without the fear of breaking her. Truly, the one who was _really_ afraid here was him. Trying not to touch her and trying not to hurt her, but filled with the longing to _feel _her without the anxious, gnawing thought that her demise was never further than a simple lapse of his control. He imagined she was soft, having never let his skin come into contact with her own, and smooth like satin. He imagined that her skin would be warm and that heat would pool beneath it when he touched her, coloring her cheeks a lovely pink. Her hair slipped from his fingers, silken and pallid in the darkness, and he raised his bright eyes up to her own, heart clenching when he realized she had shut her eyes from all the terror that must've been building within her. It killed him inside to realize she would never trust him.

_Don't be scared,_ he wanted to say. _I will never hurt you._ But what kind of cruel lie would that be? He wasn't a dishonest being, quite blunt to be truthful, and so he wasn't about to tell a fib now. Especially not to her. She had never lived the life he wanted her to, one full of innocence and kindness. She had known he was trouble from the start, but wasn't she drawn to danger? And he was the embodiment of all that was hazardous, and she had been enticed from the very beginning, tempted by his sharp-toothed grin and inviting gaze. Until it was too late.

And what were his intentions until just recently? Certainly nothing good, he would admit to that willingly and readily any day. When he first laid eyes on her, something seemed to call to him and pull him toward her. He hadn't resisted at first, let whatever that force was coax him toward her, curious to see what would happen. At the time, he couldn't care any less about hurting her. And perhaps it was cliché of him to say, but it was her smile that made him rethink himself. Then it was too late to run away, to detach himself from her, because he was in too deep. He was charmed by her, those wide green eyes and challenging smile. And it had never been his intent to become so attached to her, but it happened and it was too _late _to untangle himself now.

His guilt was what made the truth spill out from him.

Her fear was to be expected, as was her revulsion and panic. But not her curiosity, and not her concern. The fact that the truth had not driven her away the way it should've was enough to make him want to sing, but her hesitation and mistrust was enough to make him want to break down and cry. And it alarmed him, because since when had he ever been so _moved _by another person? Since when had he ever cared about someone's acceptance? What had this girl—this _human—_done to him to make him so weak and desperate?

"I'm sorry," she sighed, and he held his breath and looked away.

_For what, _he wanted to ask. _For making me like this? _

_He _was afraid. Of so many things, where before he never had been. Of losing his sanity too soon. Of falling apart. Of shattering from the pressure. Of dying from hunger. Of hurting her. Of losing her. That was the biggest fear. A day without her would be a day in hell. And he'd thought he knew how that felt like. He thought he understood what it was to be damned, to live through never ending torture and agony. The ironic part of it all was that he didn't. Not one bit. God had never wanted him and would never love him; he would never know what heaven was and would never know peace. But perhaps God didn't hate him, although he was certain there was no place for him beyond the pearly gates, because here stood an angel before him, cloaked in sadness and troubles, but his savior all the same. And he would fall to his knees for her, beg her to set him free from his curse.

What would she say then? What would she do?

"I wish..." she began, but never finished that sentence. It hung in the air as she waited for him to interrupt. He never did, and she did not bother to continue her line of thought. They both knew there was nothing she could do.

She was only seventeen, with not a drop of talent in her veins, and he could've been a hundred years old, with venom coursing through his. She did not ask him how many lives he's lived, how many people he's witnessed die and how many he had surely killed. She did not ask him how many loved ones he's lost, or if he's ever even had a loved one to speak of. That was the type of thing best left locked away in his mind, where she would never trespass. What he was scared of, she'd never know. His ghosts were his own to fight and his sadness was his own to feel. She was not a selfish creature—what kind of selfish person would give up her life to save another?—and so she left his secrets to himself.

They weren't hers to hear.

For years she was told she was a smart girl, the golden egg amongst her peers. And she had taken pride in that. School had never been difficult for her and life had never been too unkind. At least, that's what she liked to think. Until one winter day, she looked over to spot a stranger standing across the way, covered in black with blood red hair and pale green eyes, looking so alone and lost, but completely fearless and serene. If she had known what he would offer, she would've stayed away. Because what he offered was fear, and pain, and excitement. And death.

Perhaps he _was _death himself, come to take her. But why did he seem to be changing before her eyes? Wasn't the Grim Reaper supposed to be unmovable?

She didn't feel smart. She should've seen it coming. The signs had all been there, _screaming _at her that he was unnatural. She never listened, and became trapped there in his gaze, never touching and leaving that space between them completely uncharted. What was the attraction? He never laid a finger on her, never brushed his lips across her own in a kiss, never stepped any closer than the distance they'd established in the beginning. The conversations had never been sweet and light. They had been dark and unpleasant. But utterly insightful. She might've even answered the common question of the meaning of life at some point.

But his beliefs were nihilistic, so _unlike _her.

Why had they grown so close? Why were they so intrigued by one another?

He was a monster. His teeth were long and sharp and shined in what little light slithered from the window above them, his eyes glowing even in the darkness, intense and watchful. He was flawless, almost beautiful, but completely _other_, not human. Not an animal. Not _anything._ Was it fair that she was allowed, even expected, to be afraid, while he couldn't be? She knew he felt it, too, that unreasonable fear that had nothing to do with their differences, with the danger that lurked beneath every word he ever spoke. If it could make a grown man cower, surely it could make him tremble as well.

They were being broken down, and it wasn't _fair._

And maybe it was the wrong choice, maybe it was reckless and foolish, but when his mouth suddenly latched onto hers, she didn't resist. He would've pulled away if she had, they both knew that. He would've backed off and this would've ended right there. But she didn't, and he waited for her to. He stayed still, heart pounding, anticipating her refusal. And he hummed in bliss when she made no move to stop him.

If this kiss was all he'd ever get from her, he would die happily.

How many despicable creatures like himself can live to say that they have found peace? None he'd ever known. He was glad it was him who would know the feeling, and yet he was filled with despair as he realized there would be no rest for him. She would be taken away from him. God never loved him, and he had come to understand that a long time ago.

When he pulled away, he immediately whispered, "I'm sorry." And meant it. What had she ever done to deserve the love of a monster? He avoided her gaze, and dug his nails deep into the wall behind her, sinking easily into the concrete and shivering when he thought of what would've happened had he indulged himself in that fantasy from earlier. Such a fragile little thing she was, staring up at him with wide eyes that spoke _volumes _to him, of things he didn't want to hear.

He was a demon if she was an angel.

She stood on her toes to place another peck upon his cold lips, and his eyes lowered minutely, sorrow filling him to his damned soul. He could never have her, and that was his punishment. _This _was the hell he had been waiting for. To _feel _her, but know he couldn't have her. She was a human and he was not. It wasn't allowed.

He closed his eyes, letting his black lids shield his emotions from her. "Forgive me," he breathed, and his eyes shined when he opened them again.

_Please don't cry_, she wanted to say, but she watched with dismay as his mouth opened, canines glinting as she pushed harder against the wall, horror splitting through her. Death had never crossed her mind before she met him. And now...?

Now...

"I'm not afraid of you," she mumbled, but she looked away, brows pulling together and body growing cold. "I'm not..."

"I am," he replied, a deceptively calm look in his eyes.

And it clicked. _Yes, _she was afraid, and _yes_, she wished she'd never met him. But the truth was always better than the lie, even if it hurt. Even if it killed.

He'd never said it out loud, but since the day he met her, he has never devoured another soul. And she could see how much it took from him, how much energy he's lost. He never promised he'd never do it again, though it was an unspoken rule between them. He never promised it wouldn't be her, either.

The shadows moved behind him, two black wings ripping through his clothes from his back, stretching out straight and then relaxing on either side of him. His eyes grew brighter and his teeth sharper, and she wondered what he really was. Not one of those supernatural creatures she read about in books every now and then. Like a vampire or werewolf. No, he was something else. He would never tell her and she would never ask.

His voice grew raspier, deeper. "I am very afraid."

She met his gaze, grasping for some sort of strength within her. "Why?" she asked.

He reached one hand out to touch her face, nails black and long and lethal. The very tips of his claws gently grazed her skin, making her shudder involuntarily. "Because I'm hungry."

She searched his face, watching him become paler and paler, more and more inhuman and perfect. His hair was darkening, the color of fresh blood, seeming to stain his skin where it hung over his forehead in spiky wisps. "For what?"

"You are an insatiable being," he murmured. "Why can't you just be satisfied with what I tell you?"

"Because I'll worry."

Silence settled between them. Black horns broke from his forehead, blood trailing down, and she twitched to help him, but his hands caught her wrists, claws carefully overlapping one another. Never had a human cared so much for a monster. "The answer will worry you more."

"Don't kill anyone."

"I have to."

He was a filter, he supposed. He killed, but the people he killed weren't _good_, not like her. And he could almost say he was doing a good thing, ridding the world of the bad. But he knew that if he could still feel hunger, there would be no end to it. How many lifetimes has he been alive now? How many centuries of this torture? There was no better torment than to watch the years pass and know he could not be human, to see an old soul be born and then torn away so quickly, to witness the acts of goodwill be buried by sins. Nothing pained him more, except, perhaps, the anguish of loving a human being.

He let out a sigh, and looked back down at her. Stubborn child. He pressed another kiss upon her lips, reaching past her to unlatch the door beside her. Moonlight spilled into the room, silvery and celestial, and he turned her to urge her out. Her home wasn't too far, and before she could turn to protest, he had already melded into the shadows of the forest, watching her look around frantically for him, and then adjust her scarf around her neck, stuffing her hands into her coat pockets and trudging off toward the trail. He slipped behind the trees, up through the branches and then through the air, silently escorting her home. Not a soul to be found outside, but they hid in alleyways, waiting for her. The one thing he could give her was protection, at least.

He landed on the roof of her apartment complex, resting his wrists on his knees and watching her slip inside, listening to her footsteps as she made her way to her floor and into her home. He waited there until she was asleep, breathing in time to her girlish snores, and then moving his eyes over the town. An ugly town filled with horrible people. Perfect for him, but so _wrong _for her. He smiled, sadness filling him. They weren't meant to be. He could never love nor be loved.

He hadn't known his heart could be broken by a fact he'd known his whole existence.

If God hated him, then why had that girl been shoved into his life?

His wings spread out, a shadow perked upon a rundown building. A demon with glowing green eyes and a big bright smile that _dripped _with menace. A tail whipped behind him and his nails sunk into the metal beneath him.

Not a scream was heard that night, just a long, rumbling growl, and a broken howl when a cloud passed over the moon.

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: He's a demon that fell in love with a normal girl, as you can see, but he's coming to terms with the fact that he can't be with her without hurting her. He's asking her if she's afraid of what he is, not what he could do to her. And, honestly, she isn't. She's more afraid of falling in love, and he is, too. So they have more in common than he thinks, but he refuses to accept that.**

**I hope you liked it! I'm moving on to write the next chapter and continue working on my other stories and hopefully will update soon. **

**Please review!**


	3. The Past

**A.N.****: Woo, I am on a roll. **

**These stories will **_**never **_**have a pattern. But I hope you like this one. It's a mixture of playfulness and seriousness. And it's longer than the last two stories, but I think it's the only story I'll make this long.**

**I never mentioned this, I don't think. But I hope one of you made the connection. The title is the fear. So when he asks if she's afraid, he's referring to whatever the title is. So, in this case, is she afraid of the past.**

**Genre: Romance, hurt/comfort, some angst, and slight tragedy.**

**Disclaimer: I do not own **_**Naruto**_**. No. Never.**

**Warning: Mature content. Ha, but not explicit.**

**The Past**

"Are you afraid?"

His hand smoothed down her back, warm and gentle, and she arched toward him, gritting her teeth. This wasn't supposed to feel good. It was supposed to disgust her to her very core, make her sick and hate him with that deep, fiery passion she was so famous for. But that's not what she felt at all. Her nails sank into his shoulders, bowing her head as he trailed his lips across the slight slope of her own shoulder, tongue darting out to flick her earring, a simple silver hoop that was completely out of place with her good-girl persona. The studs embedded along the shell of her ear were more endearing than any coy smile she'd ever directed at him, more because they reminded him of the ones he had in his own ears than anything. He smiled when she let out a frustrated huff, the subtle muscles in her back tensing the lower his hand traveled. She was halfway to the point of ripping his heart out and eating it. But she would never do that.

Because love wasn't ever simple.

She felt his arms tighten around her waist when she tried to pull away, pressing a tender kiss over her pounding heartbeat, and her face burned with a blush she loathed with all her being. Despite her best efforts, she still wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing closer. His nose followed the line of her throat, breathing in her scent, so lively and fierce. The moment his lips met her own, she immediately bit him, dull ivory teeth pressing into his rosy pink lower lip, and he gave a sigh, the calming smell of peppermint and dry soil relaxing her enough for him to fully caress her mouth with his. Her temper often got the better of her, even at the worst moments. He watched her eyes flutter shut as she melted into the kiss, lips whispering against one another softly. He wanted to be slow about this, tender, but she wasn't allowing that.

But no one ever said it would be easy.

"No," she mumbled as he trailed his mouth down her throat once more, lightly sucking on her collarbone. "I'm not afraid."

His eyes opened slowly, his hand stroking her back comfortingly. Her hair slipped over her shoulder, tickling him as it drifted across his chest. She rarely ever grew her hair out long, but when she did, it took all her time to keep it healthy, fussing over it until she finally chopped it all off in the end, only to start the process all over again. He brushed it back and placed another kiss on her temple, feeling her shaky breath on his jaw, her fingers trembling on his shoulder blades.

_Liar_, he thought, smiling sadly against her forehead, letting her catch her breath. He remembered when they first met, the immediate dislike they shared for one another. She had eyed his piercings and tattoos and bright red hair and had made a face of contempt, one that had made him bristle in anger and annoyance. His first thought had been: _Bitch_. She had worn a frilly pink dress and glossy black flats, her pink hair tied up in a perfectly neat bun and her face clear of that excessive, dark makeup he was so used to seeing on other girls, looking bright and awake and innocent. He instantly knew what kind of girl she was, and he supposed she had drawn her own conclusions as well. He figured they would be nothing more than acquaintances, considering they shared friends and would see each other too often to be strangers. But it would be distant, strained, only speaking to one another because a mutual friend insisted that they do. The more they spoke, the more they argued, but the more they realized how unique the other was, that there was more to them than the image they had made up for the other. And the years passed, and now they were married.

But of course things could never be that effortless.

She still resented him, despising the fact that he was a troublemaker, a delinquent when it came right down to it. His past troubled her, as did his appearance. Crimson hair and pale skin just didn't seem to appeal to her, neither did the scatterings of tattoos across his body, some easily visible no matter what he wore and some hard to spot; some only she has ever seen and made her blush for their location. His piercings never bothered her until they were in the bedroom, and then she realized just how much a lip piercing could annoy a person.

But the fear, that was something else.

That was caused by _her _past. Not once while they were together had he ever hurt her, but that didn't mean she'd never been hit before. The way she flinched when he reached his hand up to cup her face stung him like an iron, and the kiss he brushed across her cheek was faint, unsure, almost hesitant. It only took the slightest, briefest rejection from her to make him feel uncertain of himself. His eyes moved over her face, her own eyes shut and a blush painting her cheeks. He tried to imagine what that man looked like, the one that had hurt her so much. Maybe he was bulky and gruff, a drunk that reeked of alcohol constantly, and maybe he also had a bunch of tattoos and that's why she hated his so much. Maybe he was balding but had a thick mustache, reddened eyes and yellow-stained teeth, maybe he had big, calloused hands and a beer belly. Her hands ran across his chest, bringing his attention back to her, and the look in her eyes told him she knew what he was thinking about. He felt his lips turn up in a rueful smile, catching her hand in his and brushing a kiss across her knuckles.

Maybe the man was burning in hell now.

He really hoped so.

"Don't think about it," he murmured, wishing it could be as easy as that. How could he ever stop her from remembering? Her mind was free to wander, and he would never dare to take that from her, and sometimes the places it went wasn't somewhere either of them wanted it to, but she had about as much control over it as he. Fear was only a concept, that's what she always whispered to him when her nightmares were too dark and her heart beat much too fast. But both of them knew she didn't believe that. It was an inane hope that he would never quell, though he knew for a fact it did nothing for her.

After all, every time they drew closer together, she always pushed him further away. And what kind of love was it if she wouldn't let him in?

She let him coax her back, her head in the pillows and her pink hair in smooth swirls about her head. She needed to cut it soon. His hands trailed up her thighs, leaning over her and offering her a sweet hint of a smile, pale eyes warming, melting her. "I'm trying not to," she replied, reaching up to run her hand through his auburn hair. "But how can I?"

His tongue pressed over a rosy nipple, warm breath tickling her. He wasn't sure how to respond to that, distracting her as he thought it through. She had no control over memories, no one did, and as far back as he could remember, she had always been plagued by her insecurities, things that had not been a problem before that man had hurt her. And in all the years that he's known her, she has never once said who that man was, and he had never pushed her to. All in due time, he supposed. But how much longer could he possibly wait? How much more of this agony could he take?

He didn't want to tell her how much it actually hurt him to see her suffer, he knew she would worry endlessly over it. He didn't want to disclose all the anger he felt, all the regret and burning hatred he held. He didn't want to take it out on her. She was fragile in his arms, so real and _breakable._ He was afraid to think of how much damage he could do to her if he lost control for even a moment. And _look_ at the way she trembled there beneath him, eyes wide and helpless, plagued by memories she would never share of a faceless man he wanted to violently murder. His hand drifted across her stomach, so much smaller compared to him, and closed his eyes, trying to calm himself.

She watched him carefully. He was a ticking time bomb, always had been. He could be the sweetest man alive to her, so gentle and tender. There were moments, however, that he was dangerous, reckless, and somewhat arrogant. He'd grown up having to fend for himself, and he wasn't used to having to put his guard down. At first, whatever affection she felt toward him would be pushed away and rejected. Now, he practically soaked it in. People had always told her she was too loving, that underneath that hot-headed surface, she was _dying _to coddle _something_. And she supposed it was true, if their time together was telling her anything. It would only make sense. What she had been given in her life had never been worth her endearments.

She hated to admit it, though, but she sometimes found him beautiful. Past all the piercings and tattoos, there was his porcelain skin that was finer than silk. And past all the thick leather and chains and black clothing, there was a lithe body that awakened a hunger in her she never knew before. And behind the taunting smirks and quick-lashing remarks, there was a man that was afraid of being loved. She never met his family, she didn't know the people he had been raised around, and whenever she broached the subject, he shut down as quickly as she did. She could almost say that was the one thing they had most in common, their wounds. And that was the _most _beautiful thing about him, his vulnerability.

So when she pressed a slender hand over his heartbeat, she felt his breath leave him, and she felt light inside.

_Yes, _she was so afraid. And, _no_, she couldn't stop thinking about it. That was the worst thing.

He looked nothing like that man. He was all fine lines and delicate muscles, lean but hard and rough, even through the unexpected softness of his skin. His nose was one smooth line and his face was flawless and void of regrets. His eyes were striking, soulful, a strange pallid green that soothed her. His hair would glow red in the sunlight, soft and yet grainy. Nothing about him reminded her of that man. She pressed a kiss on his forehead, pulling away to see his eyes close blissfully. She had never seen someone so comforted by her touch.

It was a good feeling.

He bowed his head against her neck, bracing himself on his elbows. This wasn't a conversation they should've been having now. He had resolved to devote his day to her, worshipping her, pleasuring her. It was what she deserved, but not what she wanted. Their marriage was riddled with secrets, ready to spill from them at any moment. But it was also based off of trust. How could she let _any_ man this close to her without having some faith in him? He let his hand drift down the curve of her waist, breathing across her skin softly.

"Don't push yourself," he pleaded, curling his hand around her hip carefully. "I don't care how long it takes..."

She couldn't help the tears that burned their way from her eyes, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling and feeling them trickle toward her ears. She blinked her green eyes wide, lips parting and clasping her hands over her chest. The _freedom_ that gave her, that one little statement of his. She could see them slowly letting their walls fall and learning to understand one another. She could see herself falling deeper in love, them spending a lifetime together. Fighting, certainly, but also calmly enjoying their time together.

She let out a breathless laugh. "Thank you," she whispered.

He opened his eyes, resting his ear over her heart. He was never the romantic, but this woman was changing a lot about him. He didn't hate it as much as he thought he would. "Just tell me if I do something you don't like," he murmured.

She didn't want to watch him, but she couldn't help it. His mouth trailed down her stomach, hot and wet and sweet, kissing her hips and thighs, evading the warmth that was building where she wanted him most. No, he never reminded her of that man, but the places she let him go were places that man had attacked. And the way she tensed gave her away. "I don't want it to get in the way," she mumbled when he paused just over the junction between her legs. His eyes met hers and she quickly looked away, brows pulling together for all the feelings he caused in her. "Keep going."

He remembered the first time they went out. It wasn't a date at first, yet things played out that way in the end. She had worn pants that day and a pair a worn out sneakers, a loose sweater with her hair messily done up in a ponytail. It was the worst he'd ever seen her, without all her primping and fussing. But it was also the first time he ever _really _looked at her. And he liked what he saw. She really didn't care what he thought of her, and he _liked _that for some reason. He had seen her put on her lip gloss in front of him, seen her adjust her bra—she'd used him as a wall once to hide behind to do it—and had seen her become uncertain around other men. Some claim that when a woman puts on makeup in front of you, you've officially been "friend zoned", and he hadn't minded that. But the fact that she was so completely _comfortable _around him made him feel...secure, for some reason. No girl had ever trusted him enough to let her true colors show, however brief it was. It was a nice change. He remembered the way she laughed at him when he fell back against a brick wall in an alley, the way she didn't seem scared of being hurt around him, and he supposed it was then he fell in love. So quickly, and it was shocking. His whole life running away from it, and he had wound up caught up in it in just _one_ night. And he remembered their kiss, how sweet it felt, how warm _he _felt.

He smiled.

_You're afraid_, he thought, brushing his lips over her heat, hearing her sigh very lightly. _Not of that man. You're afraid of _me_, silly girl._ His tongue dragged over her softly, his hands gripping her hips and pulling her up toward his mouth, closer. She tasted faintly sweet, like honey, and smelled of flowers. His fingers found his way inside, gently pulling her toward her completion. He assumed that man was rough, and he had never once been.

The lines had been drawn that very first day. She made it clear what her boundaries were and how far she was willing to push them. He never pushed her further than what she allowed. Even married, there were still things she refused to do. And he understood that, better than she knew.

His fingers curled up, brushing that one little spot he had tried his damnedest to find since their first time having sex, and felt that familiar tightening. The moan that escaped her was deep and pleading, shaky, and he stroked her thigh, soothing her back down from her high. She caught her breath as he lapped up the juices, sitting back to lick his fingers, trying not to smile _too _smugly.

"Stop acting like you won a million dollars," she grumbled, blushing in embarrassment. Every time he made her climax, he always smirked like he had beat her at some game. It unnerved her endlessly.

"It feels like I did," he replied, watching her bite back a smile. He moved his fingers back toward her slit, but she closed her legs around it, trapping his hand there.

"I'm sensitive," she complained, sitting up and stretching her muscles. They felt loose and relaxed. It's been a long time since she's felt this way.

He flashed his teeth, dragging his tongue across them and watching her emerald eyes widen in surprise. "Is that your way of saying you want me?" he asked lightly.

_Yes._ "No, shut the hell up," she snapped.

One of the many joys of living with her was pissing her off. He couldn't quite explain it, but there was something about her when she was frustrated that made him happy. Maybe it was the way she scrunched up her face, or the way she vehemently denied him while still pulling him closer. Even now, she was reaching for his hand and pulling him toward her, pouting childishly when he grinned again.

He stretched out over her, letting her get comfortable beneath him. His jaw tensed when her hand wrapped around him, her small warm hand, and caught her lower lip between his teeth, sucking softly as she guided him to her entrance. "Can I ask you a question?" she breathed, tilting her head back, allowing him access to her throat.

"Certainly," he replied, shifting his hips and slowly sinking into her. Her walls tightened around him, spreading her legs a little more for him to settle between them. She wriggled beneath him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

"Why me?"

He didn't know how to answer that. There was no clear answer. It wasn't love at first sight—that would've been a hideous lie and they both knew that—and he didn't think she was his soul mate. They did not complete each other and they weren't a perfect match. But she was _different _from all the other girls, and he couldn't explain that to her, because he _himself _didn't know why. And so he was honest.

"I have no idea."

She was so beautiful, in a very simple way. Her hair was pink and that was always a subject of debate between them, wondering _why_ when she had never dyed it. Her skin was peachy, faintly tan, much darker than his. Her eyes were wide and green, filled with life and fire. She was petite, but strong. Her breasts were small, but he liked that about her, how slight her hips were and how toned her body was. The most surprising fact he learned about her: She had been a nurse for the army. Such a sweet, kind girl she was, and she had been getting shot at and ducking away from grenades daily. He felt like he had failed to live up to some expectation because of that, but she always smiled and said she didn't care what he was. She liked him how he was.

She accepted him.

He didn't care how tightly she clung to him, how deep her nails sunk into his skin, it was _his _name she was whimpering and _him _that she wanted. He drove deep inside her, rhythmically, rocking against her. He didn't care that her hair stuck to his skin, that her legs wrapped around him too closely, constricting his movements to quick, shallow thrusts. He didn't care how long it took, as long as she came undone beneath him and had her fill.

"Yes," she gasped, and, really, what more could he want?

Sure, he wanted to know, he wanted to help her, he wanted to save her, but if she wasn't ready, she wasn't ready. He'd wait. Five years waiting for her to finally say yes to him, a year waiting to finally make love to her, so what was a little more waiting?

He caught her hips, nibbling on her throat to alleviate her tension. Did she ever think about that man when they were together like this? Did her fears ever resurface as he touched her? Her breasts crushed against his chest as she arched off the bed, moaning into his mouth when he smoothed his hand down her stomach.

He rested his weight on his hand, breaking her hold on him and sitting back, pulling her onto his lap. "I'm afraid," he admitted, guiding her against him. Her hips rolled and his head fell back, closing his eyes as a shot of heat jolted up his spine.

She ran her hands down his chest, tracing the thin black swirls spanning his skin. "I'm sorry," she replied, leaning forward to suck on his collarbone, moving up toward his ears and lightly pulling on his earring. Was is it her past that scared him? Or his own fears? She spread her knees on either side of him, straightening her back to press a kiss on his cheek. "What are you afraid of?"

"Losing you," he murmured, smoothing a hand up her back, admiring her for a moment. She had not a single tattoo on her entire body, the shadows and dips of her skin unobstructed by ink. He wondered how long he could explore her, be amazed by how untainted she was. He tipped her back, feeling her panic and then cling to his shoulders as he watched them, connected, shining with her wetness, growing harder inside her.

"Don't be," she sighed, nuzzling his hair, moving with him as he laid her back down. "I won't ever leave you."

But he knew as well as she did how unpredictable he could be. He could very well say something he didn't mean, and lose her forever. It was all just a matter of time. Just like their secrets, building between them. They'd spill out one day, and what would happen then? Would they scare away the other?

How could she ever tell him she had been abused by the man she loved only a year before meeting him? How could she ever tell him how much she thought of that man everyday before she met him? How could she _explain _to him that he was the only person that has ever taken her mind of that man?

And how could he ever tell her why he looked the way he did? And why he was so afraid of letting her near? And why he never told her about his family? How could he ever tell her that they were all dead, and that it had been all his fault?

They were both afraid and they couldn't share that.

~~...~~*~~...~~

He remembered his big sister.

She had been beautiful, hadn't she? So lovely, so brave. He remembered her blonde hair, always reaching out to touch it as a child, awed by the silkiness of it, how it glowed like gold in the desert sun. And he remembered her eyes, green, but so much darker than his. Like a forest, the kind he'd never seen before until he ran away, a comparison to the spiky leaves only made until after she was long gone. He wasn't sure whether the color was exact, it was all based off of memories. But when he thought of her, he saw pine trees, but not the smell; just the color of their odd leaves. And her skin, that was just faint, darker than his, almost golden like her hair. And her smile, warm and motherly, but wild and strong. He remembered her laughter, bold and loud like bells. Not silver bells that tinkled so lightly, but golden ones that rang with finality. She was golden, he remembered that, with striking green eyes that were so vivid in his memories. He remembered that on windy days, she smiled most, blonde hair dancing, so _alive _in the breeze.

And then her screaming. Crying, shouting, begging, sobbing, pleading. And he was afraid, so very afraid, wanting to save her only his big brother wouldn't let him.

He remembered his big brother, too. He was tall, towering over him. His narrow brown eyes that glinted with mischief, the color of chocolate, the kind he always fed him secretly when their sister wasn't looking. His hair had been a muddy brown, the kind he rarely saw, only once every few years when it rained, and spiky and messy and wiry to the touch. He was fierce and temperamental, but playful and funny and kind to him. His laugh was loud, too, but rough and demanding, almost like a bark. His teeth had been sharp, like his, and shined in the sunlight when he grinned in a devil-may-care sort of way, the kind of smile he had adopted over the years. He remembered his big brother as reckless, challenging, almost arrogant, but also protective, loving, and responsible.

Like when he held him, hiding in his room in a corner where the darkest shadows were and the moonlight could not reach them, whispering, "_Stop, you can't_," whenever he heard their sister cry. He could hear his big brother's heart pounding against his ear, feel tears fall into his hair, his arms wrapped around him too tightly, but he was silent, strong, trying to calm him down.

He remembered watching the paramedics wheel away the body. The body, not his sister. The girl he saw lying there, limp and broken, that wasn't his sister. Her hair was tangled and glowed red and white with the blaring sirens flashing around them, not golden like it always did. Her skin was almost sickly, almost the color of _his _skin. Her eyes, he would never forget that. They were dark, not her usual dark. They were empty, not lively like he knew them to be, and they looked black. Not green. Not like the pine trees he saw a few months later, trying to forget, trying to run away. His sister had always looked like a mother to him, like their mother who he only met by seeing a picture rested on a table in the living room. But when he saw that body that was meant to be his sister, he saw a girl who barely grazed the age of thirteen. He swallowed his fears.

He was only ten.

Then his brother. He didn't know why it happened, but he found his brother lying in a heap in an alleyway. Some men were running away, dressed in black, as he stepped into the alley to see why there was a fuss there. His brother didn't move. His brother didn't breathe. And no matter how much he screamed, he wouldn't open those narrow eyes to tell him to shut up. "_You can't leave me, too_," he had cried into his chest, no heartbeat to be heard, no matter how how hard he listened. And he _hated _the color red, so much, because it stained his brother's skin and made the dark, cooling liquid oozing around him shine so horribly. He _hated _everything, so much, because everything he knew was being torn away. Orphaned because his father had hurt his sister, alone because his brother had been beat to death, abandoned because nobody wanted him.

He had crawled through life, alone and unwanted, letting life do what it may to him, reveling in the pain of having metal pierce his skin, forever etching his siblings' names into his skin, the pictures of monsters on his flesh, his demons. And then one day he met a pretty girl that was _too much _like his siblings.

She didn't wear makeup, like his sister, and had that golden skin. Her eyes were lively, too, and her smile so very genuine. And her temper lashed like his brother's, and her laughter was bold and strong. And it tore at him to be near her, because it was too much too soon, but it was all he wanted in the world.

And when he learned she hated life, too, he smiled back at her. Then they could hate life together, and she could teach him how to love her.

~~...~~*~~...~~

That man had black hair, black eyes, and skin as white as milk. She had fallen in love with him when she was a child, and they had grown up together.

From day one, he had always been troubled. And she had always assumed she could save him. But that was a childish lie.

She could remember how dark his gaze was, how he looked at her with burning hatred, and she could remember the sadness there as well. All she wanted was to take away his pain. Yet he had caused her more pain.

His nails would dig into her skin, leave red lines there she had to hide. His teeth would sink into her shoulders, leave bruises she hid with her hair. Her body had been his toy, and her heart, his canvass to paint obscenities upon. She went into it hopeful, and came out broken. And he had been gone before she could help it. Their childhood had been spent playing games, talking to one another and chasing the other. It had changed one day when they were twelve, and he had become a monster over night, growling at her to leave him alone and pulling away when she moved to hug him. She was fifteen the day he came to her and smiled a terribly beautiful smile, and the day he convinced her to kiss him. The kiss had scalded her, _screamed_ at her that she would regret it, but he tasted like blueberries, like water, and she thirsted for him.

It was easy for him, she believed, to persuade her into darker fields. It was barely a week before he had her in bed, tearing her clothes and biting too harshly. Six days of seductive smiles and malice-laced words and she was his. She hated how naïve she was, how easy it was for him to coax her in the direction he wanted her to go. He reeled her in near, played with her, used her, and then threw her back like she was nothing to him. And never, not once, had he told her why it was _her _he chose to mess with. He was handsome, with dark intense eyes and fine, aristocratic features; he could pick any girl he wanted. And he chose _her_. And she never understood _why_.

The scars would fade away, she had known that. His imprints on her would vanish sooner or later, but the wounds he left inside of her never did. She spent an entire year wondering what she'd done wrong, why he had left her like that, slowly reverting back into herself, back into that good-girl image, but she never truly found herself. She spent the better part of her months fixing her torn hair, cutting it short and buying expensive shampoos to make it shine. She put on creams to make her skin smooth once more, massaging the bruises that wouldn't fade away and applying ointments to marks he had left on her. She bought new clothes to forget the old things, redecorated her home, but nothing made her move on.

It was four years of his torture, four years of silently loving him and his total rejection, four years of his close proximity and yet distanced heart, and he had shoved her away after one last, burning kiss, biting her lip and drawing blood, whispering, "_You'll always be mine,_" and making fear pierce right through her heart. And he was gone, promising that no matter how hard she tried, she would never forget him.

She never did.

She didn't think, one year later, that the boy was an angel. He had soulful green eyes that spoke _volumes _to her of hardship and sorrow, the kind of eyes you saw on a lonely child, but frozen, hard, distrustful. His lashes were thick and black, long when he stared down at his scuffed combat boots. He was the opposite of the man she had loved. He had tattoos here and there, swirling about, one on his right arm and one on his left hand, one beneath his left ear and one leading down his chest, which she could see from the leather jacket he wore, slightly unzipped with just a loose black t-shirt underneath. His pants were somewhat torn and worn, stained with paint of different colors. His hair was red and short, where that man's had been long and raven black, messy where _his _had been neat. His skin was pale, too, but the effect was somehow different. _This _skin, despite the tattoos and piercings, looked flawless and soft, as if it had never been touched before, though clearly it had been, with all the girls looking at him. She immediately hadn't liked him, but was drawn to him anyway. He was the opposite of an angel. But something called to her.

Something about him _screamed _for help. Just like that man.

And perhaps that was her weakness, the troubled ones, but she didn't care. She wanted to _help _this guy, and she felt like she _could._ And, the closer she got, the closer she wanted to be.

Until there was no space left.

But she wasn't stupid. She wouldn't be fooled twice. He wanted to go fast, he wanted to kiss her and make her his, but she wouldn't let him. She would _not _fall for it a second time.

She really did like him, no matter how much they argued, no matter how _different _he was from the man she had loved. She liked that he was different. She liked that he was strange. He made her laugh, and if he smirked seductively, she knew he wouldn't hurt her. The nips he took at her skin were light, and when he pulled her near, he didn't bite her. He tasted like peppermint and spices, a sharp taste that kept her alert, awake, and she _liked _that. A lot. It was frightening how much she liked him, how much he made her feel. She was tingly and fluttery, and, when he kissed her, faintly, lightly, almost unsure and innocent, she felt safe.

She felt like herself.

And it had been a long time since she had felt like that.

~~...~~*~~...~~

Their wedding wasn't much. All their friends showed up and it had been pretty simple. He'd worn a suit he couldn't stand and she wore a dress she adored. Nobody seemed surprised they would end together—did opposites really attract?—and everyone seemed pleased. The cake was chocolate—he was addicted to it, apparently—and the flowers were lilies.

It was awhile before they consummated their marriage. She could never trust someone so quickly. And everyday was either spent arguing or laughing at one another.

It was another two years before he told her about his mother, and two months before he told her of his father, and she saw how hard it was for him to say it. How scared he was. But the day he told her about his sister, he cried, and that was the first time she had ever seen someone look so broken. She had held him, kissed him, _anything _to make him stop. And then he told her about his brother, pulling her close to press his ear against her hammering heart, trembling against her.

Sadness. "I never met my mother. She died giving birth to me." Anger. "He _deserved _to be killed. He got what he asked for." Guilt. "I wanted to save her. But I couldn't." Pain. "They beat him to death because he didn't have money." He ran away from foster homes and visited their graves every day. She felt unworthy of him. What he'd gone through seemed so much worse than her.

"The man I loved abused me," she murmured as he rested his head over her heart, too tired to do more. "He said I belonged to him."

And for a while neither said anything. Bare and vulnerable to the other.

And then, "You don't belong to anyone."

"...Not even you?"

"No, not even me." It would be heartbreaking to see her branded. She was a bird, free, wild. She didn't deserve to be captured and locked up in some cage. Whatever melody she sang would be _because _she was free, not because she _yearned_ to be.

"It wasn't your fault."

He swallowed his fear, pressing a kiss against her throat. "Let me figure that out on my own. It'll take awhile."

"I'm here," she offered.

"Don't ever leave me."

"Of course not."

He looked out the window, leaves rustling in the wind. Pine green, like his sister's eyes, and windy like she loved it. He smiled and thought of the chocolate his brother liked. "Will you ever answer that question honestly?"

_Are you afraid?_

She thought for a moment, running her fingers through his auburn hair, staring up at the ceiling. "Probably not for awhile."

He understood. He didn't think he could, either.

"Can I ask you another question?"

"Certainly."

"Why _me_?"

"You asked that already."

"I'm curious to know."

It would take _years _to be able to answer that. He liked everything about her, even the bad things. And she was still growing, changing, and he liked that too. But how could he convey that to her properly? She wasn't the type to linger on things and neither was he. "I like you...a lot."

She laughed. "That's not what married couples say."

"You take what I give you," he muttered.

"I like you, too, a lot."

He smirked and looked up at her, pale green eyes glinting mischievously. "Is that your way of saying you want me?"

"Shut the hell up."

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: Now I'm off to buy some candy. I'm craving.**

**I'm pretty sure you can guess who had hurt Sakura. Forgive me, but I kind of hate Sasuke, so he'll always be somewhat negative if ever mentioned. Yes, they're married. And I'd say they have ****been for about three years. They met when they were twenty—same age, yeah—and had been ****friends for about four years before they went out, one year of going out, and then five years proposing to her (and her refusing) and then three years of marriage so far. So they're about thirty-three and have known each other for thirteen years. Whoa, right?**

**Anyway, on to the next story. I'll see you soon. I'm updating my other stories right now, so the next to update will be "At the Edge of the World", but I'm not sure **_**when **_**I'll be updating that. I've hit a brick wall there and it's annoying me to no end. **

**Oh, and I had an idea. Post suggestions of story ideas for this fanfic. It'll be interesting to see what I can make of them. **

**Please review! And forgive any errors. I'm tired.**


	4. Blindness

**A.N.****: I'm sorry, this took longer than I thought. I'm hellbent on continuing "At the Edge of the World****" but I just can't seem to keep going. I'll find a way, I know I will.**

**Anyway, so, this one is the first one I wrote, during class, and I admit it's slower than the last one. But, like I said, no two will be the same. Their paces are different and they have no connection. So don't expect every one of them to be like the last. For all you know, the next one could be about two little kids or something. **

**This one is pretty sad and I suppose it ends somewhat abruptly, but I hope you'll get the feeling anyway.**

**Genres: Hurt/comfort, romance, and friendship.**

**Disclaimer****: I do not own ****_Naruto_.**

**Blindness**

"Are you afraid?"

He asked the question often, a simple murmur in the air as she reached her hands out for the keys. It always made her pause, fingertips frozen mere inches from the sleek ivory gleaming in the dull light sneaking through the thick curtains she pulled tightly over the windows. She always waited a few minutes before answering, trembling very slightly, holding her breath, heart stuttering, body growing cold, mind reeling, before—

"No."

His footsteps were light, walking along the marble floor slowly. Never hurried. Never worried. Yet lately she sensed a change in him, subtle, barely noticeable. But slight for him was tremendous. She did not look back at him; she knew what she would see. Yet she knew that she should; she wouldn't be able to anymore soon. He always wore all black, no matter how hot it was outside. But he never went outside anymore. Not since the "big news", the news that was her unraveling, her undoing, her despair and her sadness rolled into one... He always stopped behind her.

"I won't ask any more from you. Just play one."

She bowed her head over her hands, gritting her teeth tightly. Her hands shook, body wracked, trying to bring them down upon the keys, but never quite touching. She could play it in her head, long lines of melodies she knew deep down in her heart, all by memory. She could remember which pressure made them sing and which made them sigh. She knew it, she did. She just couldn't play them anymore. Hot droplets fell onto her hands, upon the white keys and the backs of her fingers, gently burning and crystal clear.

"I...I can't."

When he hugged her, it was tender and warm, holding her close and resting his chin atop her head. He promised he'd be there and he was. No matter how much time passed. Sometimes he reached his hands out over hers, and played a song using her hands, and she almost felt like a normal person again, as if nothing had ever changed. Sometimes, he played a lullaby, and sometimes he sang along, faintly so his voice was soft and smooth. So unlike the reality.

She closed her eyes and pulled her hands away. The kiss she placed against his throat was feather-light, quick. "Thank you."

It always ended with him pulling away, the moment gone, and he was back to a mural at the furthest wall where no sunlight reached.

Silent once more.

~~...~~*~~...~~

She couldn't see her feet anymore, just two blurs shaking before her. When she looked at him, she pulled him near, so that she could see his eyes. She didn't care if she never saw her own reflection again, or the walls around her, or the mural he'd splattered across plaster. She would die inside if she never saw his eyes again.

He kept his distance then, holding still whenever she caught his face to see his eyes, and immediately stepping away when she loosened her grip. She felt dread build in her like a freight train, quick and wild and uncontrollable, with every minute that passed, every inch he grew further away.

She wandered the expanse of her home, not wanting to forget how things looked like while she still had her vision. He watched her, she knew that, but another second of his detached conversations and she would surely come undone.

Her hands waved before her, measuring distances and locking them away in her mind. She would never remodel again. Why would she? She wouldn't be able to see it anyway.

~~...~~*~~...~~

"Come closer," she mumbled, hugging her knees. Just figures, that's all she could see, and maybe the green of his eyes if he was real close. He never denied her, sitting beside her on the bed, only sliding near when her eyes pricked with tears.

Her eyes were still a lovely green, paling now, unfocused, blinking quickly and flickering every which way. They settled on him, his face. But her pupils kept expanding and shrinking, swallowing the faint emerald color and then slowly growing smaller, trying in vain to capture all she couldn't see anymore. Something about it made his throat go dry and his heart sink.

How hard was it to watch the girl you love go blind? To know how scared she was? To see her lose grip on her happiness?

He reached for her, pulled her near. Letting her go wasn't as easy as he thought. When he first met her, she wasn't anything particularly special. A girl with strangely colored hair and far too expressive eyes. A music major with aspiring dreams to be a famous composer, broken down by the media, and turning to her brains. And she was smart. Smarter than he could ever hope to be.

He hadn't expected to get this attached to her.

Certainly, she was lovely. There was no doubt about that. But he wasn't the type to go for looks, and so his attraction toward her was a mystery. Her clothes had been pristine, clean, neat, and she had always looked bright and alert. Lively. But now...

Now...not as much anymore...

It was an innocent love, the need to be around her and to hug her and see her smile. Not once had it ever ventured further. So the kiss she placed on his cheek was chaste, gentle, and sweet. Just like everything else had been. He couldn't even _begin _to tell her how much he wanted to kiss her lips, how much he wanted to run his hands over her soft skin and find out how far her blush really went. He could never voice his desires to her because he knew they could never be more than what they were. She would be losing her vision soon, completely, and those glasses she had folded on the nightstand wouldn't work anymore at some point, and she refused to wear them anymore than was absolutely necessary...

He didn't want her to have to struggle anymore than she already was. If they made love, she wouldn't be able to _see_ everything, and that was the saddest part of it all.

Was that she would never know what it was she was doing.

"I..." he began, but her green eyes shut, cutting him off.

_Don't_, they said.

~~...~~*~~...~~

There were nights that she feared the shadows were watching her, that they stalked her as she lied there, eyes wide open and frightened, and she was unable to tell anymore without the light being on. She would crawl into his bed those nights, clutching onto him. And they were becoming more frequent, until finally he took all his belongings into her room, holding her when she woke up in fear and mumbled about monsters grinning at her as she slept. His own eyes moved about the room every time, and he swallowed thickly as he realized there was _nothing _there.

_He _was scared, because she saw things that he didn't. Her vision was going and it was becoming more and more apparent everyday. He could lie to himself every single day of his life, whispering, _no, no, she's fine_, or he could face the truth. She would never see again. And as she whimpered softly in his arms, noticed shadows moving that he knew to be still, his breaths grew shallow, his throat became rough, and silently, so silent even _she _would never know, tears slipped down his face, shining, glistening, staring up at the ceiling because he was too afraid to look at her now. All the things she's never seen, all the things she's never pictured, all the things she could've marveled at and sighed softly at, were slipping away and there was nothing he could do about it.

He would hand her the world if he could, it didn't matter how much it would hurt him. But he couldn't save her vision.

He shut his eyes, a deep loathing filling him for how useless he truly was, all the while listening to her mumble about things that did not exist.

~~...~~*~~...~~

"Are you crying?" she asked.

She wore her glasses now, and smiled because she could _see _now. But they both knew, beneath the surface, that it was only a shallow happiness. They both knew that her eyes would continue to fail and that those glasses, soon, would no longer be of any use to her. Still, though, still...it made him glad to know she could find some peace of mind, no matter how brief it was.

He blinked, and grit his teeth, turning his head away. "Yeah..." he replied.

Her smile tightened, looking down at her hands, resting calmly on her lap. She knew why. Of course, things were becoming strained between them. Their thoughts were beginning to synchronize and their worries were becoming obvious. Neither of them would admit to them, though. Why bring up the topic? It would only serve to break them down more.

"Don't be sad," she murmured, clasping her fingers together and trying not to watch him gather his supplies. He would leave her again to work on his mural. That's all he could do to keep his mind off of her sorrows. But every time, she felt something snap inside of her, quietly, so that he would not fret any more than he already did. She would never say it out loud, nor would she ever give him the slightest hint.

But...there were times he figured her out, as easily as reading an open book.

He passed her, slipping between her delicately hidden feet and the coffee table, and then paused, staring ahead at the windows that remained covered by thick curtains, wondering when he would see the sun again, if he would ever allow himself the pleasure of feeling its warmth, and then turned to lean down and kiss her forehead, a tiny reassurance that he still loved her. And then he straightened to stride away.

Her brow twitched in something akin to irritation and frustration, a blush staining her face, pushing her glassed up the bridge of her nose in indignation. He'd caught the look of sadness that had swept over her, and he had comforted her, just like always. She had to stop being weak. She had to be strong. How could she, though?

It was a one in a million chance she would catch the disease, and another one in a billion it would reach her eyes. How? _How_? And _why _was it _her _that caught it? Why did it have to happen to _her_?

She bowed her head, tears welling at her eyes.

~~...~~*~~...~~

"I can't see my feet anymore."

He knew what she meant immediately, and set down the cup he held slowly. His back was to her, and yet he was so painfully aware of her. She was watching him, he knew that, but that didn't mean that she could _see _him. And that's exactly what she was trying to tell him. Her glasses were beginning to fail her. He'd known since the beginning of the week—days he counted because they could only guess how long it would take before it was completely gone and he couldn't bare the thought of missing anything anymore—that they weren't working anymore. The way she squinted now, the way she rubbed her forehead, the way she reached out to touch things, making sure they really were there, feeling her way around and shutting her eyes in desperation.

His hands shook, trying to act calm. Only an act. He couldn't do more than that. He couldn't stop his heart from pounding and he couldn't stop the way he trembled. He could only pretend that what she said hadn't affected him. "I see..." he replied. He couldn't say, "_Well, the doctor said that would happen_" because they both knew what the doctor had said, wide-eyed and frozen in their places. He couldn't say, "_We'll just get you another pair_" because they both already knew that they could buy as many pairs as they wanted, it wouldn't prevent the blindness any more.

She could barely make out the shadows the folds of his shirt made, or the way his pants hugged his legs. But his hair was bright and spiky, she knew, and his skin was pale and flawless. She interlaced her fingers, biting her lip and looking down. How long before she could no longer make out the color of his hair, or his face...or his eyes...? She let out a shaky breath, trying to keep the sob trapped there within her. She hid her face when he turned around, ducking her head and letting her hair shield her eyes.

"S—don't..." he muttered, reaching over to catch her face. "Don't hide from me..."

She opened her mouth, trying to find his eyes through the pallid strands and shining, burning liquid. "I...I..." She shook her head, gritting her teeth and letting out a choked sob.

She was beautiful. He pulled off her glasses, her green eyes bright in the light, pink brows furrowed and face pink. The tears rolling down her cheeks made his throat hurt, his chest suddenly feel tight, his mind grow blank... "Don't..." he mumbled, but she was grabbing for him, hiding her face in his chest and wailing for another chance.

"I'm...scared..." she cried, barely able to catch her breath. "I'm so..."

Maybe in another life she wouldn't have been so unlucky. It had been a slight chance to begin with, so rare they'd been sure they would've beat it. But there it was, stealing away her eyes and robbing her of her peace.

~~...~~*~~...~~

They were milky in color, waiting to be touched, waiting to be caressed. His hands settled properly, searching his mind for the appropriate thing to do. Do or don't do.

The sighs were faint, sweet, and he closed his eyes, letting his body do the work. No thoughts. He couldn't take the way his mind twisted things and made them what they weren't. He couldn't withstand anymore of the sadness.

And the way her eyes _shined, _so bright and so lovely, trying to tell him what her mouth would not. The way her back arched and the way her hands curled into the sheets, crying because he was blurring and she couldn't _take _the fear anymore.

His fingers came crashing down, anger, trying not to break any more than he already has.

And then the way she said his name, looking away because she didn't want him to know that by the end, she couldn't even see his face anymore. The way she kissed him, keeping her sorrows from pouring into him, just a trickle of her melancholy, only breaking away because she could feel the warmth of his tears rolling down his cheek and across her lips, trembling, avoiding what they both knew was only the truth, burning them behind their eyelids.

The song came in a whirlwind of emotion, and he could feel her behind him, listening. That was all she could do. Listen.

To think that the only time he would be able to show her how much he loved her was when she was on the brink of losing her vision, when she could hardly see before her, clinging to him because she was scared and he had always been there to protect her. As far back as either of them could remember, two little kids playing together in a sandbox, and his promise that she would be his wife one day, and her childish agreement.

She did not let him finish the song, finding her way to him by memory, only memory, and placing her hands on his shoulders. His head bowed, droplets falling down to his fingers, eyes wide and panting, heart pounding.

If he had been strong enough, he would've given her the whole world.

But he just couldn't save her eyes.

~~...~~*~~...~~

"It was you," he said, sitting against the wall. She had found her way to the side of the house where no sunlight would reach, curtains pulled back now because it couldn't bother her anymore. She wouldn't have known either way. She stood there wearing a white dress and no shoes, a blindfold over her eyes—she _has _to learn how to keep her eyes shut—lips parted and hands open, searching for him. He did not move, waiting for her as she felt along the wall, feet padding along until they brushed the back of his hand. He looked down, curling his fingers around her toes and then watching her kneel down carefully to sit beside him.

"The mural," she murmured, resting her head against his shoulder.

Her fingers laced through his and he sighed. "Yeah." She smelled of flowers, and fresh fruit, and he smiled and breathed her in, looking away from the splashes of color spanning the wall, forming her face as she laughed sweetly, green eyes happy and warm. "I was going to show you when I was done. But I finished around the time that...you went blind..."

She kissed his cheek. "I'm not sad. I'm sure it's beautiful."

"I know it is."

~~...~~*~~...~~

"How does it feel like?" he asked.

She pressed a finger against the key, a light sound following it. _There's the first key_. She pressed the next one. _There's the second key_. She did not pause in her work, relearning the keys once more. "I'm not sure how to explain that. It would scare you if I did." She played a tune, feeling her mouth turn down slightly when she missed a note.

He watched her hands, awkward, inexperienced in a way he knew she wasn't, and felt his fingers curl inward. It was unnerving to watch her like this, see her stumble through things, trying and trying to learn how to live a new life. "You're afraid," he found himself saying.

That caused her to pause, and it made his heart clench. He knew the truth before she spoke the lie.

"Of course not," she murmured, and he looked away.

He leaned down and kissed her forehead.

_Liar_.

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: Sad, isn't it? I'm not sure why this was the first thing I wrote, but that's where that line took me. **

**I hoped you liked, and I know it's completely different than the last story. I hope this time I can write the next one sooner.**

**In this one, they're childhood friends. One day she notices she can't see as well anymore and goes to the doctor, and he volunteers to accompany her. They hear the news that she will go blind—some genetic disease she had—and they decide to live together, because pretty soon she won't be able to do things on her own. Gradually, they realize how they feel for one another. But they're too distraught over the news to do anything about it for a while. Yes, they both know how to play the piano, she's just better at it than him. And yes, he's an artist. I may or may not make him an artist again.**

**Anyway, please review! They help me write these for some reason.**


	5. Yourself

**A.N.****: Okay, so it's ****_not _about two little kids.**

**Sorry this took a while. I'm flooded with other stories that I need to finish, plus a project I need to start for someone, and I'm hungry for some pancakes but I'm too lazy to make any so I finished this chapter instead.**

**This chapter features drug use, but it's not explicit because it's only _him _that's doing it and he doesn't very well do it for long. So, not much of a warning needed. Enjoy.**

**Genres****: Romance, hurt/comfort, and friendship.**

**Warning****: Some drug use and slight language.**

**Disclaimer****: (is it weird that I read that word in an obnoxious British accent? I don't think so) I do not own ****_Naruto_. **

**Yourself**

"Are you afraid?"

His fingers were stained with black car oil and dry dirt, the white skin of the backs of his hands marred by tattoos of names she could not read, smoke clouding around him thickly, green eyes narrowing at her dangerously, taunting her, mocking her in all her inexperience. Around them sat their drunken classmates, tilting back green and brown glass bottles and touching one another far too intimately, so preoccupied by one another they did not notice the silent battle waging between two strangers. Except him. He watched _her _intently, completely ignoring the noises around them, moaning couples and shouting imbeciles. She crossed her arms, scoffing at him, but they both knew she was terrified. It was simple. She had hardly just met him, and yet he could read her every emotion, and she couldn't quite figure out why.

Or was it more that she was just terrible at hiding things?

A girl curled up beside him with unnaturally bright blonde hair and big blue eyes bumped her shoulder against his, glossy pink lips curling upward flirtatiously at another boy next to her whose eyes were glazed and grin was nearly downright stupid, but he paid it no mind, his eyes locked on hers, reaching his hand out further for her to take the small object there between his long, spindly fingers. Another girl tittered behind her airily, someone burped loudly to her far right, and another began to question the universe and its workings while staring into their bottle bemusedly. They were all idiots.

Why was she here?

She had never done drugs before. She had never associated herself with these types, airhead girls with far too much make up and far too tight clothing and ravenous boys that reeked of sweat and alcohol. She found herself drawing into herself, flinching away when one came too near, absolutely disgusted at their touch, slurring questions about her pink hair and tugging insistently on her modest clothing. She had come here because her friend wished to be with a boy that hardly noticed her and had promised herself she would not speak to anyone while there, an easy enough task considering no one here _really _wanted to talk. But _this _boy, the one with flaming red hair and scintillating, black-rimmed green eyes, the one with a devilish smirk and a piercing punctuating the end of it, had taken a sudden interest in her, and he refused to leave her be. He did not move any closer than he already was, keeping the distance between them constant and respectful, but he never let her out of his sight, and if she gave him even the slightest fraction of attention, he was bristling with excitement, eyes glinting almost hazardously. It wasn't the good kind of excitement he showed. Not the kind you felt when you got presents, or passed a test, or talked to the person you liked. No. This was a different kind. The kind that made her want to turn and run in the opposite direction as fast as she could, all the way home and under her blankets, safe and far from him.

But her friend was here somewhere, lost in the crowds of wild teenagers with raging hormones and desperation. She couldn't just leave now. That would be wrong. And so she stayed put, staring at the boy as he retracted his arm and placed the thing he had offered her to his lips, watching her closely as he sucked in toxins and poison into his lungs, and then blew it out toward her. She turned on her heel before the scent could reach its ghostly fingers to her and headed toward the kitchen, slipping between couples and groups and into a less crowded area, and then outside, into the fresh air, where very few had wandered to. The ones that had either came out to make out in the darkness, further out beneath some trees in the backyard, or lay down on the cold cement of the back patio to calm down their booze-induced nausea. She sighed and watched the cold air cloud at her mouth, rubbing her arms in an attempt to get warmer.

"You look lonely," an unfamiliar voice said from behind her after a few minutes of peace.

She already knew who it was before she turned her head to see, holding herself tighter instinctively. "I'm fine, thank you," she replied in a clipped tone, despite wishing, petulantly, to remain silent and hope he would leave. He wore all black, unlike most people here, most dressed in shorts and tank tops for springtime—only the recent drizzle had cooled the night to a skin-chilling temperature that had her hopping very slightly in place—and others wearing simple dresses or button ups. His pants were blacker than the sky and hugged his legs and hips snugly, with two thin belts adorned with small buttons shaped as skulls and a chain clipped from a belt loop to a, surprisingly, pink button that had an ironic and innocent daisy on it—although he probably wore it for much darker reasons, like maybe because it was the flower of death in some places—and his boots were scuffed and worn, a few broken buckles holding them together. He wore a jacket over a faded band shirt and a few bracelets on his wrists, a ring on his right thumb with a strange symbol and one pinkie nail painted a bloody red. His necklace had a cross for some reason and another had a fang. His ears, lip, nose, and left eyebrow were pierced. That same eyebrow twitched the longer she stared, and he brought the blunt back to his lips as he smiled in amusement.

"I find myself wondering why you're here," he said lightly as he blew out more smoke. "You don't really belong in this type of place."

"Neither do you," she retorted, to which he raised his brows to in mild surprise, lips curling up in another smile. "Why are _you_ here?"

"I was invited, actually," he replied honestly, much to her dismay—it would only mean he would expect the same from her—and stepped forward, but not toward her, and moved his gaze out past her, perhaps at the couple that had started making audible noises as they progressed. "I didn't want to come, to tell you the truth. This isn't really my crowd. But I didn't have much else to do, so I figured I had nothing to lose." He rolled the loop in his lower lip between his canine idly, bringing his pallid eyes back to her. "And what about you?"

She sighed, crossing her arms once more; her skin was covered with goosebumps. She didn't completely want to answer him, but he was waiting, holding the blunt between his lips and watching her carefully. "My, uh...friend wanted to meet someone here..."

"And she completely blew you off," he finished for her, nodding and waving the smoke away. "I got it."

"No," she said, deadpanning. "She's hopelessly chasing after this boy and I'm just here to make sure she gets home safe." She scratched behind her ear, turning away. "That's all."

His eyes moved back to her, calculating, faintly intrigued, turned away from him and staring up at the sky. She wore a thin white shirt and plain blue jeans, a pair of simple white sneakers and small earrings. She wore no make up and her hair was kept back with a hair clip, arms crossed uninvitingly. And yet he was drawn to her. Not in the sense that he would like to grab her and have his way with her right then and there, but in the way that he wanted to pester her and mess with her head to see what reaction he could get. He wanted to see how far her could push her. But she left no openings. If he took a step closer, she took a step further away. If he smiled and asked her a question, she frowned and answered with one of her own. She was an intellectual, and would very much like to be treated as one. He ran a hand through his hair, vaguely noting the way she shivered in the nighttime chill.

"Very responsible of you," he commented lightly. The look she sent him made him smirk, wide, cold emerald eyes of hers burning him to the core. "But I'm sure right now he has her in one of the rooms in that there house, groping her with all the skill of a horny thirteen-year old boy with no respect for anything female." He took another drag, letting her mull that over.

She didn't need a second to think about it, spinning around, making his eyes snap back to hers immediately in surprise. "That's her problem. But I'm not going to abandon her. I'll deal with the rest later." The music within the house was bumping, cement throbbing beneath their feet, but she held her ground, ignoring the cheering, shouting teens and the way the smoke curled gently around his shockingly flawless face, pale green eyes seeming to glow in an ominous way, the very edges of his lips turning up slowly again.

He watched his feet as he stepped around the cracks in the concrete, moving to stand beside her, but never coming closer, remaining the exact same distance away, the grass shining with the left over droplets from the rain. "Well, if you want to be the permanent third wheel, be my guest. Be the ultimate fuckin' cock block if you want..." he trailed off, kicking away a pebble.

He didn't have enough time to react when she slapped him, closing the space between them instantly, a sharp, quick, hard smack across his cheek that stung his skin and almost made him drop the shortening blunt pinched between his fingers. He immediately cupped his cheek, looking down at her in surprise. Her eyes were set, cold, impenetrable, and indignant. "_Never _talk to me like that," she commanded, voice completely even and controlled, and he found himself nodding obediently, despite his better judgment. She stayed there beside him, past their unconsciously set up boundaries, nostrils flaring and eyes narrowed, cheeks turning pink the colder it became outside.

He looked away, guilt twisting in his stomach. He shouldn't have said that. It was uncalled for. It wasn't as if she was bothering her friend _now_, as they spoke. There was no real truth to his words. But the fact that he felt any regret at all was entirely unusual. "I'm sorry," he mumbled at once, and she did not answer, crossing her arms and letting out a sigh, clouding thick before her mouth, a pallid pink that she dared not lick for fear of making the cold worse against her flesh. He watched her a moment, before unzipping his jacket, keeping the blunt between his lips firmly, stepping toward her and draping the jacket over her shoulders, stepping back again immediately and turning away as she looked at him quickly. He breathed in more toxicity, silently letting the smoke twist around him languidly, keeping his eyes lowered and away from her judgment.

And then he blinked, shocked by his own actions. He'd _never _been that kind before, to _anyone_. He glanced at the girl, and was astonished to find her slipping her hands through sleeves that were too long for her and zipping it up comfortably, as if she owned it, as if it were natural. He tilted his head back, pushing away his unwanted emotions, pooling there at the pit of his stomach. He hadn't come here to think, hadn't come here to step around the land mimes set up by an insecure girl. He'd wanted to unwind, forget about life, relax for a change—forget the fact that he didn't like a single person here and would rather stab himself in the eye with an unraveled paperclip than be here. But this night hadn't gone as expected. He'd planned to show up, not talk, lose his mind, and then leave.

It had actually gone pretty well until, in the middle of lighting his blunt, two girls walked in, catching his perceptive eye. One was blonde and unhealthily thin—but of course, he had seen his fair share of _those_ throughout his life, and maybe even more, and the flicker of concern he used to feel has long since died and withered away—with big blue eyes and spiky black lashes that _should've _been blonde and tight, revealing clothing, impossibly high heels and jingly, silvery jewelry. The second was much more unassuming, which was, unexpectedly, a nice change, wide green eyes and becoming clothing. Her hair was pink, a silly contradiction to the rest of her, and she seemed like she wanted to be anywhere but there, eyes filled with contempt and hesitancy. He had felt his lips curl up for the first time all night as he brought the blunt to his mouth, silently glad he had at least one thing in common with _someone _here, the unwillingness to be around the cretins surrounding him. And then that blonde was pushing her way through the crowds determinedly, leaving the pink-haired girl behind, helpless and confused, and he had become intrigued, staring until she made eye contact and slowly made her way over after a few long minutes of looking for her friend, sitting across from him properly, keeping away from the others stringently, and regarding him silently, distrust a solid form there in her emerald eyes.

He supposed it was good he had taken an interest in her, because a lot of his fellow males certainly did, looking her over with curious hunger and betting one another how quickly they could get the prissy little girl to put out, in that wholesome, timely game everyone so often partook in. Hell, even _he _had done it once, taken advantage of the innocence of an obviously virtuous stuck up girl, smooth-talking his way into her heart and then playing with her a bit before tossing her aside... But _this _girl, this girl with the perfect pink hair and the wide green eyes and the peach-colored skin, she was different. She wouldn't be easy. In fact, looking her over, the heavily guarded expression and cold-set mouth and tense shoulders, he knew she would be the most difficult, most complicated, and most challenging girl in the entire world. He could _see _it, right away, the moment she met his eyes. She wasn't the ordinary good girl.

She was something else entirely.

And so he decided he wouldn't play that game with her. He knew he wouldn't win. _Nobody_ here would win, not against _her_. She was too strong, too determined, and far too fierce for anyone here. She would be a puzzle of intricate thoughts and words and questions, no answers and no openings. She would offer not even a hint of a way in to that complex mind of hers, and definitely not that body either. And he would not fight for it. He would surely fail, he could tell that much. And all from a glance, a simple glimpse that she allowed, if only to tease him in a very unaware, unconscious way, into her thoughts. And as she sat there, oblivious of the boys that openly leered and the women that quietly scorned, he almost felt like laughing into their faces. Because he knew, and she certainly knew, that she would leave this place completely and utterly _untouched_.

He could respect that kind of confidence.

And a certain protectiveness of such rare qualities and unmovable mindset reared its head in him, and he found himself scowling at those boys when she looked away from him and his eyes growled, "_Mine_". Although, of course, she was anything but. Would _always _be anything but. She wasn't something to obtain, wasn't something to win. She was not a prize and she was not a toy. And he would not treat her like one. And he would not let anyone _else_ treat her like one.

But he should've _known _that it would end up affecting him like this, that her strength and her stubbornness would've risen such tumultuous feelings inside him, that her subtle grace and her profound beauty would break him, if only a little. After all, when was the last time he met such a fiery, hostile girl like her? He couldn't remember. All he could see was a mass of faceless girls clawing at him, whining at him, all the same and all generic. Curvy, perhaps, or thin as a rail. With long hair that flowed, or short hair that prickled at him. Doe eyes that pleaded, or slanted eyes that seduced. None of them, not a single one, like her. With eyes the color of green stained glass lit up by sunlight and a temper that lashed like a whip, but a delicate gentleness that hinted at a silent sweetness he wished to see.

Perhaps his sister was the closest he could think of that reminded him of her, who had long since moved away and found herself a good, caring husband and began her own respectable, loving family, so _different _from her two, rebellious little brothers. Such a girl like her—like his sister who he didn't want to admit that he missed, that could make and break the whole world—deserved that kind of a life, safe and secure and loved, and he would not be the one to give it. Certainly not.

But, _God_, if he wasn't so intrigued, so fascinated in her, this wouldn't be happening. He wouldn't be so interested, he wouldn't be so fond, and he wouldn't be so awed by her. And she was so _different _than he expected, than he had originally thought, because a certain air of elegance enveloped her, a refined young lady that was a rarity amongst the promiscuous girls that only wanted attention, if only for a second, and he knew he was nowhere near good enough for her.

He smiled, more to scorn himself than anything. How silly of him to fall in love so quickly with such an impossible target.

"Are you just gonna wait until she shows up?" he asked after a while, pushing aside his inner turmoil and glancing at her carefully. She had used his long sleeves as makeshift gloves and stuffed them into the warm confines of the pockets, letting the warmth that soaked into it leftover from him radiate through her, thawing her skin.

The jacket didn't smell like smoke and car oil, or even alcohol or sweat. It smelled like plain soap and dry earth, almost pleasant in its simplicity. She was surprised, of course. She had expected a disgusting scent to follow it from him, surely being unhygienic and careless. But it felt and it smelled well taken care of, almost cherished. She let herself bask in the comforting warmth and the calming scent, taking her time breathing in before answering him, missing the way his eyes flashed in curiosity at the faint smile on her lips that was gone as quickly as it came and left a patient look behind that suited him well, "I'm going to have to. I can't leave her."

"And who is this mysterious boy?" he asked in amusement. He ran through a list in his mind of all the boys he knew at the party, trying to match them up with her blonde friend, but it cut short immediately and his smile fell instantly as a dark, sad look overcame her features at the question, the sweet calm between them growing icy in a split second.

"Sasuke Uchiha," she hissed under her breath, her hands forming small fists in the pockets of his black jacket, gritting her teeth in resentment.

He could feel the animosity in the air, potent and tangible against his own skin and nerves, his flesh cooling now in the night, and he looked over at her in alarm, confounded by the sudden change. He knew that name as well as his own, but never, not once, had he met a single girl that had ever hated _him_. A handful of boys, sure, but never a female. The guy was handsome to any and all girls, charming, and so he assumed there was not a single woman in the world that could ever hold such disdain for him, such aversion and detestation to the point of seeming to physically _seethe_ with it... This girl was full of surprises, wasn't she?

She composed herself, kicking the tip of her shoes against the edge of the cement patio, just shy of touching the shining, moist grass. "She's been in love with him for quite a while," she mumbled. "She decided tonight would be the night that—" she stopped, blinking in confusion and then looking away from him, brows pulling together. "Not that it matters to you or anything," she muttered childishly.

He scratched the back of his head thoughtfully, realizing what she had at the same time. She was beginning to confide in him, and that, they both knew, was illogical. He was not her friend, nor did he have any intention to be. He would remain a stranger and nothing more. For tonight, he was her companion, merely to keep her distracted with small talk as she waited for her friend to come to her, surely crying and seeking comfort from a boy they both knew was rotten to the very core of his being. Nothing more. They were two completely different people and, after tonight, would never speak to each other again. Perhaps they'd catch a glimpse of one another in the hallways of their high school—surely they'd seen each other before but never made note of it, for how completely and utterly unalike they were—but they would never speak again.

And of course, she would be fine with that. He, however, wasn't entirely sure about himself.

He watched the smoke slowly rise and twist lethargically in the blackness of the night, letting the high of his drug pulse through him. He shouldn't have been wasting it like this. A rule held for potheads he knew quite well: Don't talk too much. It takes from the high. He stared at the blunt, breathing out slowly. It was too late now; it was almost gone. He sighed and shrugged it off. Either he enjoyed a good conversation or a mildly okay joint. "So you're basically stuck here," he surmised, turning his gaze back to her.

She was looking at the blunt incredulously, an almost disturbed expression in her eyes, before shifting her stare to him. "I suppose you could say that," she replied evenly. "It's not like it matters, anyway. I don't know anyone here and I've got nothing else to do."

He rubbed his eye, turning when he heard something crash in the house. "What, were you just gonna stay in all night?" he asked, watching through the door as a girl fell to the kitchen floor laughing hysterically, most likely inebriated past the point of coherency.

"I was going to study," she said slowly, as if he wouldn't understand the term.

He smiled to himself, cupping his hand over his mouth to suck in more of his quickly shortening roll. "On a Friday, whereas everyone else is hellbent on getting as intoxicated as physically possible."

"I'm not like everyone else," she snapped, pointedly staring at the girl, still laughing, letting hormonal boys lift her, some touching her breasts unnecessarily in the process.

"Clearly not," he agreed with a laugh.

She looked up at him slowly, his attention settled on an airplane passing overhead, the glowing end of his drug hardly an inch or so from the pallid tips of his fingers, and felt herself smile, almost unwillingly. He really did seem to enjoy her company, which was surprising. Nobody really seemed to like being around her, especially people like him, who practically _oozed _danger from his pores. She'd been accused time and time again of being too challenging, too difficult to deal with. And she supposed she knew that, and figured she could understand why so many people avoided upsetting her, stepping on eggshells just to keep her pleased, and she really couldn't say she liked that all that much. She didn't _want _to be the ticking time bomb. She didn't _want _to be the overtly complex one, the hot-headed one, the angry one..._the bitch_... She wanted to be liked, and this boy seemed to like her. Not in the way that other boys did. Not in the way that made her shrink in on herself in disgust. Not in an objectifying way. She could tell, right away, he wasn't intent on getting her in bed. He seemed more interested in keeping a conversation going than anything. He just seemed bored and she felt almost glad he had chosen _her _to spend time with. Even if he was the epitome of everything she had taught herself to avoid.

She felt herself relax for the first time in a while. "Shut up. I pretty much had it all worked out before I got dragged into this," she murmured. "Then I had to actually make myself somewhat presentable for these people."

He nodded back toward the party, raising his brows at her. "Oh, believe me, they're not worth—" A sudden, loud, serious banging cut him off, drawing her attention as he turned further away from the house, sucking in another breath of his blunt, green eyes lowering slowly. The music stopped abruptly and there was some shouting, red and blue lights flaring and girls shrieking.

"What's going on? What's happening?" she asked, suddenly frantic, taking a step toward the house and then spinning to look at him, bewildered.

"That," he said, flicking away the last, glowing bit left, "is our cue to leave."

"Our...?" she asked, but he grabbed her arm and yanked her behind him, hurrying toward the back gate. When yellow lights swung there, between the thin boards of the gate door, he wheeled around and pulled her toward the brick wall, where the couple had previously been—probably having escaped the first chance they got—and caught her around the hips, hoisting her up easily and sitting her atop the wall, urging her over insistently. "Hey, hey, wait a minute! What about—" she protested, nails scratching the bricks that made up the wall.

"Your friend is probably long gone by now," he interrupted. "Now hurry the hell up and jump to the other side before we get caught." He pulled himself up beside her effortlessly, swinging his long legs around and hopping down; there was an alleyway on the other side, heavily shadowed with trash cans tipped over between each house.

"But..." She looked back, policemen barging through doorways and dragging people out of the house. He reached up and hooked an arm around her middle, helping her down, just before a cop spotted her.

"We don't have time to look for her now," he said, grabbing her wrist and leading her down the alleyway. Gravel and broken beer bottles crunched beneath their shoes, a chilly breeze flapping the torn up newspapers littering the ground, the very edges brushing across the legs of her pants, shaking her feet when they caught onto them.

"They didn't get permission to host a party?" she asked, annoyance and disbelief heavy in her tone. She didn't pull her arm away and she didn't complain at their pace. She at least had the common decency to know it wouldn't have been smart to stick around to let the cops get to them—her parents would not have been pleased with her, despite how overjoyed they were to know she was going to a party that night—but not why they were there in the _first _place.

He smiled to himself, unsurprised by her naivety. "No one ever asks permission. They just throw one," he replied simply, although he could see how miffed she was by his answer.

"That's stupid," she muttered, glowering at the ground, her shoes stark against the blackness of the dirt. "Of _course _the police would intervene then..."

"That's the point," he said after a moment, never glancing back as the shouting faded away behind them. "What kind of a party is it if it's responsible?"

It was a rhetorical question, she knew, but she found herself responding anyway, more out of a habit to win an argument than anything. "A smart one."

"A boring one," he corrected, ducking when a porch light flicked on from his right. "There's a lot you need to learn about life."

"Life isn't about partying and losing your mind," she mumbled, looking up to find the end of the alleyway approaching them, an occasional car rolling by steadily. She moved closer to him, suddenly wary of what awaited them at the end.

"No," he agreed, trying to remember a time he had thought like she did, when he was small and innocent and didn't _know _how sad life really was, but he couldn't, much to his dismay. There was not a single time he could look back to that he _wasn't _filled so much despair and anger. And that depressed him, because she certainly _could_. "But try telling that to other kids our age."

_Kids_, she thought, looking up at him pensively. _He thinks of them as kids... _She smiled discreetly, wondering if he thought of _her _as a kid, if she was childish, immature to him. Or, perhaps, _too _mature... "...Why did _you _show up?" she asked softly, pulling them to a stop.

He stared at her, bemused, watching her play with a stand of her pallid hair nervously. He blinked, turning his gaze to glare at a trashcan a little ways off. He recognized that look, the one creeping into her emerald eyes slowly. Insecurity. Apprehension. Diffidence. It was the one quiet girls made when they were _this close _to liking someone. But, then again, she had been everything _but _what he expected. "I was bored," was all he said, coaxing her to keep walking. She took a step, and then another, and then they were slowly making their way to the end of the alley.

"Is that really all?" she asked, irate, not entirely willing to believe him.

"Well..." he mused, "not exactly. I _was _invited and expected to be here."

She nodded, remembering what he'd said earlier that evening. "Why, though?"

His lips twitched very slightly, almost unnoticeable if not for how closely she inspected his face. "The host is my older brother," he said.

"You have a brother?" she asked, stunned, green eyes wide and thin brows raised almost comically.

"Why, yes," he replied in amusement. "Am I not allowed to?"

"N-no," she stammered, looking down. "That's just... I hadn't expected that..."

"I also have a sister," he said casually, stopping when they reached the sidewalk. "And a father—"

"I get it," she snapped. "I just...figured you were an only child." He didn't seem like the type to grow up in a normal home with a normal family. He was more likely to come from a troubled home with bad parents and no siblings. But she couldn't be too judgmental. It was wrong of her.

"Three siblings," he stated, letting go of her wrist. "I'm the youngest."

"You're the baby," she said faintly, smiling at him.

He looked away, scratching the back of his head. Only _she _would have the balls to say that to his face. And he wouldn't yell at _her_ the way he would had it been anyone else. And he couldn't quite say why. "I guess I am," he grumbled, letting his eyes scan the neighborhood carefully.

"Hm, but why would you show up to your own house for a party?" she asked.

He met her gaze evenly, eyes indecipherable. "I don't live there."

She blinked, confused, opening her mouth to ask why—ask _more _questions, as if her curiosity was insatiable—but he gestured behind her.

"I should drive you home, while we're at it," he murmured gently, passing her to walk down the sidewalk, stuffing his hands in his pockets. "Don't want you getting raped."

She hurried after him, casting a horrified look around her. The street was silent and the patio lights had all been turned off for the night, the street lamps illuminating a yellow spot upon black asphalt every few houses. His car was parked along the curb a few houses down from his brother's house, now clear of any remaining teenagers with hardly one police car left over. She hid behind him, expecting him to be cautious as a cop stepped out of the house and the host, his brother, apologized for everything—they looked almost nothing alike, but their hair was the same type of messy and their clothing was equally as dark as the other, their eyes every bit as intense and sorrowful as the others, and so she could almost justify that yes, in fact, they were related—but he simply unlocked his car and opened the passenger door for her, looking at her expectantly. He raised his brows at her cautiousness, and smirked knowingly at her.

"Don't make it obvious," he advised. "Then they know and you can't get away with it." She sighed, unsure she liked all of the tips he was giving her. It wasn't like she was going to do this again. One experience was good enough and it wasn't as pleasant as she would've liked it to be.

"What about your brother?" She stepped around him to reach the seat, keeping his gaze as best as she could to relay her meaning.

He glanced back, making eye contact with his older brother as the cop turned and walked to his cruiser. His older brother was tall, with wild dark brown hair and aloof dark brown eyes, dressed in clothing similar to his younger brother, with a fitting black t-shirt and smoky-colored jeans, scruffy-looking black shoes and a belt around his hips, only he had far less accessories. Scarce bands around his wrists, no notable piercings in his ears or face, not a single button on his belt, and his shirt was blank. He did wear a simple necklace with a fang and seemed to have one tattoo on his bicep, but that was as far as he went. He recognized his younger brother immediately and offered the faintest hint of a smile, a flicker of warmth in his chocolate eyes that she knew only _she _caught, and a nod in acknowledgment. When he looked at her, eyes settling carefully, his gaze grew perplexed, but the good kind. The kind that meant he was pleased to see his brother around good company, but also the kind that meant he was worried for her own well being.

"Hey," his older brother called, his voice deeper and less raspy than his younger brother's. "Don't be doing anything stupid! You hurt her, I hurt you!" And she was surprised a complete stranger could be so protective of her.

"Shut the hell up, I'm won't do anything!" he shouted back, placing a hand lightly on her shoulder and urging her into the car. "And your party blew!"

"Screw you, you weren't even there for most of it—" They were cut off by her sudden laughter, surprising all of them. She was unexpectedly pleased at their silly dispute, the brotherly rivalry so bizarre coming from him. "Just get her home safely," his older brother said, smiling at her kindly.

They nodded a goodbye to one another and he waited until she was safely inside to slam the door shut. When he started the car, he immediately lowered the volume on some angry-sounding rock music and switched on the heater. As he pulled out of the line of parked cars, she hesitantly asked, "Why don't you live with him?"

He kept his eyes on the road, one hand on the wheel and the other tapping rhythmically along to a song she didn't recognize against the stick shift. "I'm eighteen," he replied after a moment. "I don't need to live with him anymore."

She pulled at the the strap of the seat belt, shifting beneath it. "You just...moved out the first chance you got?"

_You ask a lot of questions_, he wanted to say. _Too many... _"I was working and so was he, and for a while that was fine because we split the rent between us. But he got a girlfriend and it was getting crowded, with the three of us, so I decided to give them their privacy and moved out. That's it."

It was a reasonable explanation, one that no one would've argued for its logicality. But she could see there was more behind it than he said. She could see there was a bigger reason. And he didn't seem entirely willing to share. So she let the subject drop, burning to know but accepting he would not tell her no matter what. The silence stretched between them, the music filling up whatever was left over, the road steady before them and a sprinkling of rain began to fall outside.

"I don't know where you live..." he trailed off meaningfully, turning at a corner smoothly. The motor was mostly silent and the tires ran evenly, the black leather worn and yet comfortable beneath her; it was a well taken care of car, it was obvious.

"A few blocks away from school, that neighborhood across the supermarket," she murmured, ashamed to admit she didn't know the streets and their names. He didn't seem to mind though, already making a u-turn purposefully in the direction she said. She watched the road for a few minutes as another song was played, before mumbling, "I never see you at school."

This was a dangerous topic, and he caught his lip piercing between his canine, something he did out of distress and realized he had to stop before she noticed—she could probably break him down in seconds if he let her—emerald eyes watching him carefully. School was a place they would _never _talk, they both already knew that, instinctively, naturally, already knowing how it would look. They were nothing alike and has no common friends. He hadn't even known the blonde girl she had come with. _But,_ his mind supplied, _you both know Uchiha_. Yeah, but then...everybody knew _him_. He rolled to a stop and waited for an opening between the cars speeding by. If she mentioned school, it meant she wanted to see him again. And that was bad. They couldn't be friends. They couldn't be _anything_.

_Why_, his mind asked, _because it'd hurt you too much? Because you can't have her_?

"I'm pretty quiet at school," he finally said, pushing away his thoughts. "You probably have seen me, and never noticed." It was likely. He didn't like school and mostly kept to himself if he wasn't with his friends. Perhaps they _had _seen each other once or twice and never made note of it.

"We're the same age," she said softly. "We're in the same grade. Maybe I have you for a class..."

Maybe not. He would remember pink hair, wouldn't he? He suddenly questioned how aware he really was at school. "Maybe..." he murmured, watching the bright red of the stoplight glow just ahead. The minutes ticked by slowly, waiting for it to turn green so he could go.

But then he felt her hand on his, placed on the stick shift absentmindedly, her skin warm and soothing and soft against his calloused flesh and knobby knuckles, feather light and absolutely hesitant. "Thank you," she said sincerely, lifting her hand away after a moment as the light turned green.

He silently began to drive again, hardly glancing as he passed the school, toward the supermarket she'd mentioned. "For what?" he asked after a moment, forcing the emotions he didn't want away. He shouldn't feel this way. He _shouldn't_.

"For staying with me. And helping me get away when the cops came..." she sighed, folding her hands modestly in her lap. "Honestly, I think... I think that's the most reckless I've ever been...and the most fun I've had in a while."

He turned the windshield wipers on, the sprinkling growing to a drizzle, thinking over what she said. Dangerous. Very dangerous. She'd want to hang out again, and although he wouldn't mind, he knew his friends would not share in that sentiment...

At his silence, she hurried on to say, "That must sound sad. I'm sorry, I just—I'm stupid. My friends always say I should relax and I think, with you, I kind of did and I could forget that they—" She caught herself and looked down quickly. "I feel normal around you. Like...I'm not...weird..."

He looked at her carefully, leveling his gaze, lips turning down slightly, before focusing back on the road. "Weird is good," was all he said.

She swallowed down her sadness, curling her hands into tight fists. For a wild moment, heart pounding, she confided in him, whispering, "I feel like...nobody likes me. And with you...I feel like I _can _be." He turned down the street across from the supermarket, silent once more, and her eyes widened in mortification. "I—I know you and I can't be friends. I know your friends wouldn't like me. But I—I just wanted you to know that I—"

"I feel the same," he murmured, and she went quiet instantly.

The drive was silent, and she pointed at her house hesitantly as he approached it. It was a large house, painted white and trimmed with a dark blue, black in the darkness. The porch lights were on but the rooms upstairs were dark. Perhaps everyone had gone to sleep but had thought of their daughter and left her a beacon of welcome. He smiled ironically, pale green eyes narrowing as he turned the volume up slightly to the next song, much slower and gentle. The rain rhythmically added to the soothing noise and he relaxed back into his seat, parking against the curb. "I like this song..." he sighed, and caught himself in his surprise. She hadn't needed to know that.

"It's nice," she mumbled faintly, her hand reaching out to open the door.

He watched wordlessly, a thousand pounds of remorse and taboos building within him as her fingers hooked around the handle and began to pull. "I want to see you," he blurted out, and he looked away quickly as she turned her gaze to him. "...T-Tomorrow. I want to see you tomorrow." _Stupid_, he thought. _You can't do that. You can't have her_.

_But...why not?_

She looked down at her lap, lowering her hand. So many people said she was uptight, cold, _unlovable_, and she almost believed it. Her place in life would never be with people like him—reckless, wild people who didn't care all too much about the past or the future—it would always be with books and work and diligence. She was not meant to enjoy life. She was meant to succeed in it. "_And success_," her father would say, "_means money and power._" And she was smart, she was clever, and she could make it far in life. She had the power to become anything. And this boy, sitting here beside her in this car that smelled like peppermint, dirt, and cigarettes...did not...

But when she looked at him, into those soulful pale green eyes that spoke a _million _things she didn't know, she found she didn't care. She didn't _want _to care. And her heart trembled at the thought, because she _should _care.

"Are you afraid?" he suddenly asked for the second time that night, catching the look in her emerald eyes.

Tears pricked her eyes as a hundred faces passed behind her eyelids, of people who did not like her, did not want her, and did not accept her, and then there was him, whose lips turned up in a sad, sad smile. "No," she breathed.

But she was. Oh, very much.

He reached over slowly, and she did not draw away, frozen in her place as his warm eyes traced her face, pink hair falling out of her clip and green eyes wide and stricken, wet lines shining down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with his fingertips, her skin like satin. She was the one that leaned in, and he should've been the one to turn away. But he didn't, and her lips brushed his. A fear bloomed in both of them, but neither pulled away, mouths melding together in the darkness.

She tasted of tea and sweetness and smelled like flowers and purity, and his fingers caught her chin and he deepened the kiss. A warmth spread over her and she clung to his arm, spilling every one of her sorrows into his mouth, and he drank them in eagerly, soothing her. When her hands moved to his shirt, he pulled away, slowly so the beauty of the moment would not leave him, until his nose brushed against hers, and his melting eyes could meet her own, open wide and wondering.

"You're not," he mumbled. "You're not what they say you are. You're so much more." She closed her eyes and pressed her forehead against his, gritting her teeth as pain and bliss both tore at her heart.

"How... How do you know?" she whispered, and let out a breath as his thumbs caught her tears.

"They say I'm useless," he said. "They say I'm worthless. I don't want to live with my family because they don't want me." He pulled his hands away slowly, dropping them to hers. "If somebody doesn't accept you, then don't stick around them. They will never change their mind."

"Tomorrow... Can I see you?" she asked, twining their fingers. Hers small and slender and his long and strong.

"Yes," he murmured. "I won't promise you'll like it."

She shook her head and gave a broken smile. "Anything is better than this." After a moment, she looked down and curled her finger around one of his. "Are... Are we...?"

"Only if you want us to be," he replied, already knowing where her thought was headed. She nodded quickly, and then, to his surprise, left a quick, timid kiss upon his lips and was out the door before he could react, shutting the door and running to the porch. She stopped, halfway to opening her front door and glanced back, giving him a sweet smile and waving before slipping inside. After a few minutes, the porch light flicked off, and the song playing slowly drew to a soft, sweet close.

He felt himself grin, a fluttering in his chest that shouldn't have been there, and slowly pulled out of his spot, parked between two cars, and drove back into the road, heading to his suddenly lonely apartment. Never had he been so excited, so restless for the next day.

She watched from her window, pulling the curtains shut and flopping back into her bed, hands clasped at her chest and eyes wide. Her phone vibrated beside her head but she ignored it—maybe it was her friend, asking where she was—distracted by her tickled heart and light stomach, a smile tugging at her lips and a blush painting her cheeks. As she covered her eyes, cursing herself for feeling this way for such a boy, she noticed her sleeves and let out a disbelieving laugh.

She still wore his jacket.

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: Obviously, here they are two strangers. She is a study worm with a set future by her parents, perhaps to become a lawyer or doctor, and with friends who are equally hard working but less motivated. He is an outcast who was never quite accepted by his family, only his brother really, and just wants to breeze through life without any problems. Until he meets her, and he immediately falls. Hard. So, there you have it. Will they end up together? Yes. Yes they will.**

**I won't promise next chapter will come out soon. I'm rewriting "Onyx Glare", taking a break from "At the Edge of the World" and am struggling to work on "Project Z". Yeah. Busy.**

**But since this story has no particular plot, only that one line, it won't take **_**too **_**long to come out, so keep your eyes open for it. And, uh, I hope you enjoyed. I am very tired and very sleepy, so I will be passing out soon. Just thank whatever deity there is out there that I'm doing so **_**after **_**uploading this.**

**What was the song, you ask? Flames. By VAST.**

**Anyway, please review! **


	6. The Judgment

**A.N.****: I recently stumbled across this manga that I really think you guys should check out. It's called, "The Withering of the Akane Shinchi Flower Shop". It has sexual themes, yes, and very...graphic (not entirely) art. It centers around a "Flower Shop" run by a high school senior and his older brother, two Kendo club members, a young woman, and their very complicated lives. It has a very dark message about life and death and questions love and all of its shortcomings. A lot of text, really, of them having inner monologue and almost poetic views on life. Twisted views, but quite insightful no less. It's a lot to read and is somewhat disturbing, but I loved it. You don't have to if you don't want to, but it'll basically set the tone for this chapter. It's long, goes in depth with each of those three characters, but fulfilling, if I do say so myself.**

**This is somewhat based off of that; inspired by it and yet nowhere near as good as it.**

**Which means,_ dark themes_.**

**There are some heavy matters in this, so prepare yourself. By the way, _long _chapter. (Forgive the errors, I'll correct them when I don't have a headache.)**

**Genre: Angst, hurt/comfort, some romance, some drama, friendship, and some family.**

**Warning****: Mature content. **

**Disclaimer****: I do not own ****_Naruto. _**

**The Judgment**

There was a soft mumble in the stillness of the air, slicing through the tension that had filled it in the aftermath. The rustling of particles in the coldness against her skin, feathery-light and yet grating on her nerves.

She slows and then halts, hands frozen over the simple black obi around her waist, keeping her eyes locked ahead of her, on the ebony shutters still latched tightly over the window, from which behind she could hear the wind howling in the promise of a heavy winter soon to come. The cloth was soft against her flesh, and hid her quite modestly—a mockery, really, of what she really was—sleeves long and the hem almost dragging about her bare feet. It was a plain kimono, a dark color that matched the atmosphere almost eerily, with only a few patterns of small flowers making up the whole of it. She did not turn to face the boy who stood behind her—_he should've left by now—_and went on to continue to adjust her clothing until it was decently straightened and settled around her slender body, sinking and dipping into the proper contours of her rather petite figure.

—_Down her thigh trickles something sticky, something cooling, something white, but she pays it no mind. _

—_Whose it is, she isn't entirely sure. Could it have been this client, or the one before?_

She didn't know, and didn't care to know.

It didn't matter anymore.

It was over and that was that.

Once her fingers had combed down the tangled, sweaty mess that was her hair, she moved and sat down on the bed, crossing her legs almost primly. Despite her efforts to keep the kimono shut—_always demure and always modest, aren't you?—_it fell open for her thighs to be visible, hitching up toward her hip and splitting apart to display her legs openly. She let them be seen, keeping her eyes lowered as she knew he was admiring them from where he stood by the doors.

"Haven't had enough?" she asked softly, keeping her voice low and her tone smooth. A mask to hide the feelings slithering beneath her very skin, wrapping around her bones and sinking deep within her veins.

Not in distaste for him. But for what they'd just done.

There was no good sex. There was no bad sex.

She just hated too much of it.

And that was all she ever had anymore.

A light tapping against the wall interrupted his reply, hesitant and uncertain as it already seemed to be, and he turned to watch the paper door slide open, the simple printed flowers vanishing behind another rise of printed flowers, and there was a tall man standing on the other side. His skin was pale like the ceiling she'd memorized by now and his hair was as black as the night outside, his eyes well hidden behind a pair of dark glasses—_you wear them so they don't know—_the business haori, a scarlet red with a lovely flower sewn on the back, draped over his shoulders almost carelessly. He offered a smile, but it was empty and they could both see it, she from the bed and he from his place in the middle of the room, despite how well hidden it was, and said, in a velvet voice that coiled around her mind and skin and thoughts, "Time's up."

The boy followed the Manager quietly, only glancing back once, but she did not meet his gaze, folding her hands calmly in her lap. When he was out of sight, ambling down the hall where the sounds of sex persisted and toward the entrance where the wind continued to shriek, she looked over to the nightstand to make sure the money was there and nodded absently when she found it, lips turning up in an unwilling smile.

"Good work. You did well today," the Manager murmured, sliding the door shut behind him and padding over to the nightstand. He counted the money and handed her the appropriate amount she had earned, pocketing the rest. "Ten-chan is making dinner, if you'd like to stay."

"No, thank you," she said, standing and laying the money upon the bed, where the sheets were drenched in fluids. "I'd really just like to head home for now."

He did not protest. As always. "Suit yourself."

He left her to change into her regular clothing, nodding a polite goodbye, his older brother holding her jacket up for her to slip her arms into, as she stepped into her shoes, bowing back to them and stepping out into the cold night, making her way through the entrance and out onto the streets, pulling her jacket closer around her and stuffing her hands into her pockets.

She did not look up at the sky, at all its endless, dreamless blackness.

~~...~~*~~...~~

She had finished her cup of tea, a cup of porcelain with ivory blue swirls, sitting at the table at the other side of the house, where the business was just paperwork and money-counting, listening to her coworker go on about her theories and thoughts and hypotheses, working away at her mind and her framework of thought until she was nearly spent, flopping against the table and yawning heavily into the air. A beautiful woman, really, with such wheat blonde hair and such deep green eyes, golden skin and a radiant smile—and intelligent, to boot. She found herself questioning how a girl like her could end up in a place like this, dilapidated and unappealing as it was, and yet appealing in all its broken down state.

But those questions were best left untouched, unanswered, and unvisited.

"Temari-san," the Manager grumbled, stepping out from the hallway and stifling a yawn behind his hand, black hair a mess about his particularly handsome face. "Please. You're brilliant. Don't flaunt that so openly."

She gave a bark of laughter, setting down her pencil and casting aside her pondering for the moment. "Ah, Manager-sama, did I interrupt your nap?"

He gave a wry smile. "You did. But I'll thank you for that. It's about time we opened up, isn't it?"

"In more ways than one?" another woman asked, entering from the kitchen with a small plate in hand. Her chocolate hair was knotted up, away from her small, heart-shaped face, brown eyes wide and playful, smirking almost lasciviously.

"You're quite the pervert, Ten-chan," he smiled, already walking down the hall to, perhaps, open the front gates for customers.

"Tenten, are those strawberries?" Temari asked, leaning over as the woman sat down. "Oh, how I've craved. Give me some."

"Not even a please?"

"Not even a please."

They ate together, grinning around their bites as they continued to lightly bicker.

She felt herself settle deeper within herself for just a few moments. The red liquid that rolled down from their lips brought a sense of dread from her chest somewhere, somewhere forgotten and neglected. It was alluring in its own way, both the way their tongues lashed out to catch the droplets on their fingertips and skin and teeth, and the way the sorrow seemed to build within her, teetering on the point of a grand epiphany she had no time in realizing.

She really didn't want to be thinking right now.

She almost jumped from her spot when the Manager returned, fixing the haori over his shoulders and slipping his arms through the sleeves; a sign that the day's work has already begun, earlier than usual—_eight o'clock on the weekends, you know?_

"Shall I head to my room?" she asked as he met her eyes immediately, having put on those dark glasses sometime along the way, fixing them now on the sharp angle of the bridge of his nose.

"Yes. You already have a client."

"Getting popular, Haruno-san?" Tenten asked, beaming up at her kindly, lips stained red and eyes warm and deep and honey-sweet.

"That hair causes quite a riot, actually," Temari murmured, resting her chin in her hands as she brought her elbows up onto the table. _Those _eyes, which were greener than green could be, were glinting in dangerously enticing humor. "People like new things. And Haruno _is_ something new."

She looked down slowly. "I can't tell if that's a good thing or a bad thing, being popular here."

"It's certainly debatable," the older brother of the Manager chimed in, walking over to the kitchen to make himself some food, pulling his long, slate black hair into a low ponytail with a red band, a lazy smile on his lips.

She passed the Manager on her way to the hallway, down to the other side of the house, where business was hot skin and sticky fluids.

~~...~~*~~...~~

"Ah... Welcome back," she murmured as she stepped into the room, sliding the door shut behind her, after a moment of standing by the door, a brief thought passing through the fog of her mind as she recognized the person standing in the middle of the small, unattractive room, gone before she could focus on it completely. The boy from yesterday. She wouldn't have remembered had he not been the last client of the day, the last memory she had before she scrubbed off every dried fluid on her skin there was to wash. And now he was the first. Was that flattering?

In a place like this, perhaps it was.

He was taller than her, by more than just a few inches, and had skin as white as the snow that would begin to fall outside in a matter of weeks, with crimson hair ruffled atop his head and clear green eyes, watching her now intently. He was dressed in black, like before as she recalled, and seemed to pull at the end of his shirt with his long, spindly fingers—_such uncertain fingers, touching you so delicately_—twisting the fabric tightly. The only sign he was nervous. He could've been a high school student, like she and the Manager were; they on the brink of graduation and he just hardly in the eve of his second year. He could've been only sixteen, younger by two years, eyes wide and strangely innocent. And how he'd come to find this place, how he'd come to seek her out, how he'd let his own virtue be taken like that, was beyond her; beyond her capability of understanding and beyond her tightly compact world of want for money and want for freedom—_a dead dream, really_...

She didn't know. She didn't care to know.

His response was silence, for quite a while, and she assumed he was past all of that, the superficial ceremony of exchanging empty words, to alleviate some of the tension in the air that always came with tasks like these. And she understood, if in fact he was, because she sometimes felt that way, too. So she moved toward the bed to stand by the edge accordingly, hands coming up to untie her obi, slow pulls that she emphasized with subtle movements; back straight, head turned to the side, weight shifted to one leg.

His words, softly spoken in a raspy voice, that same feather-light pressure and inane grating, stopped her, hands frozen around the ends of the knot. "I came...because you didn't answer my question yesterday."

She sat and crossed her legs again, folding her hands atop her knee and raising her thin brows at his back, where he remained in the middle of the room, waiting for him to look at her—_you are still a lady of courtesy, after all_... When he finally turned, after a few moments, he seemed to go still, and she felt his eyes trace the smoothness of her legs before he quickly looked away, perhaps remembering how they'd felt the night before, where she'd guided him patiently, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he waited.

"I see," she said at once, recounting his question, dragging it from somewhere deep within her mind, that place that was filled with dust from so much disregard and disdain. Instead of answering such a heavy, heavy thing, she gave him a smile instead, looking up at him from beneath her purposefully curled lashes. "I don't think that's the _only_ reason you're here." Shifting, she leaned back on one hand, legs slipping smoothly over one another as she uncrossed them, her kimono moving higher up her bare thighs. And it was obvious, right then, she was not wearing anything beneath.

He leaned closer, but squeezed his eyes shut. Resisting his urges, but they both knew who was winning. She'd seen it far too many times. "I... I shouldn't..."

"But you were so _good _to me yesterday," she cooed, using the tips her coworkers had given her to her advantage. The boy was not experienced with women, she could see that. He would be weak against her almost vestal seduction, her careful smiles that curved a little more at the ends, her heavy-lidded stare and her softening voice. "Come on." He took a step closer, persuaded by her most beseeching, somewhat patronizing, tone, opening his eyes just as she allowed the sleeve of the kimono to fall down one of her shoulders, down to the crook of her elbow, where the top of her breast would be visible for him, just above where he remembered was her pert and soft pink nipple, curling a finger toward her, coaxing him to her. "I'd like to feel you again."

When he had come close enough, she caught his hand and yanked him down to her, his other hand shooting out to catch himself before he could completely fall on her, brushing her lips across his jawline, hearing his breath catch as she did, letting himself be overtaken by her. "I didn't...come here for this..."

"Didn't you?" she purred, nails lightly scraping across his scalp, through soft red hair that reminded her of blood and remorse, pulling him down to trace his pale pink lips with her tongue, to taste the sweetness of what could've been the distinct flavor of syrup. Had he had pancakes before coming here? How cute. "Didn't you like it?"

"Y-yes," he stammered, tensing as her hand ran down his chest, across the black cotton of his shirt—_such endless blackness—_down the flat expanse of his stomach, down to cup him through his jeans, hardening slowly beneath her palm. "I-I just..."

He was breaking.

His mouth opened willingly, submissively, for her to slip her tongue within the warm confines of his mouth, tracing and tasting and softly sighing as the sweetness was intensified there on his own tongue, hesitantly curling against hers, as if he'd bleed if he moved any faster. Uncertain. An innocence she could never deny and he could never recover, gone before he could catch it, trapped there in her hands and her memories, which would be swept away long before he ever thought to retrieve it, buried by more hands and sweat and tastes of other men that never care and never will... Her fingers braided into his hair, pulling him closer just as her other hand moved beneath the back of his shirt, up the too-soft skin of his back, along the fine line of his fragile spine—_how easily a human can die, with just a move to quick and a steel too cold—_and the lean muscle beneath his flesh. "I want to feel you again," she breathed against his mouth, meeting his eyes, which had melted from his more composed expression to a pleading one, pale eyes darkened and pupils dilated, swallowing the sweet green that reminded her of the spring that felt so far away.

He relented.

He let her undo his pants, let her pull off his shirt, let her kiss and suck and bite and nibble and touch and _feel _him just as no other woman has before her, trembling and moaning as her hands stroked and caressed the places he'd never let anyone else see or touch before. He let her pull his ear between her shining teeth, and let her suckle upon his throat until he was sure there was a mark there—_and no explanation to go with it—_and he let her kiss him, hotly, deeply, wetly, her tongue dancing in his mouth as he tried so hard not to give in completely.

But she was letting him touch her, too. She was letting him untie her obi—_with shaky, doubtful hands—_part her pretty kimono with the pretty cherry blossoms that matched her long and pretty hair. And she let him run his fingers through that hair, let him bury his nose in that hair, let him breathe in her flowery scent. She was letting him squeeze her breasts, gently because he was fascinated by their soft texture and he didn't know any other way to act, and the hardened nipples that were pinker than her hair, pinker than the color of her lips, parting to softly moan into his mouth, were perky and pretty and tightening. And she let him tweak them, she let him wrap his lips around them. She let him leave marks on her, too, just like she did to him.

Was that her way of telling him she liked him, too?

And then she was hooking a leg around his hip, pulling him down suddenly, taking him in her soft and warm hand, a burning feeling searing down his spine and through his entire body, and then he was sinking within her scalding heat, so smoothly because she was suddenly so wet for him, and he lost all of his thoughts all at once. And all he wanted, and all he needed, was to hold her close and fall apart within her, over and over again until there was nothing left to give anymore. And whatever it was he'd really come here for—_was it really for that question at all?_—was already gone before he could completely take hold of it.

Everything turned to black, the whole world engulfed by darkness, solid and pure and _real_, and she was at the very center of it all.

The centerpiece of absolute stillness and absolute chaos.

She held onto his shoulders, tilting her head back into the pillow and tracing the lines of the ceiling with her eyes, ceiling she'd surely memorized before, lips parted as she tried to catch her breath against his movements, unpracticed and uneven, no rhythm to be found. His hands were gripping her hips, her legs, her sides, anything to perhaps steady himself as he thrusted into her, long and deep thrusts, his face buried in the curve of her neck. The bed's pathetic frame creaked beneath them, and his arms wrapped around her middle, pushing in deeper, reaching a place within her that made her writhe involuntarily. Air tore through her teeth and she tried to relax, breathing across his ear quickly and tracing the shell with her tongue.

This was routine.

This was her job.

This was just sex.

Nothing more.

But perhaps something less.

—_Can it be that you just do this for the thrill of it?_

—_Or can it be that you do it because of the money alone?_

—_Or are you _really _so selfish that you want to lie and say you _aren't _insane? _

She shut her eyes and opened her mouth to moan, an empty sound that hardly echoed beneath the noises—_skin and wetness and creaks and sighs and grunts and regret_.

And the boy's innocence was spilling deep within her as his body rocked toward her almost violently in response.

~~...~~*~~...~~

The Manager's brother was drinking tea when she finally walked into the room, on the side of the house where business was just paperwork and money-counting, a white kimono pulled tight around her and her hair damp from a fresh bath, her clothing folded atop a chair in one of the rooms behind her; she'd find it later. His hair was coming loose from his already loose ponytail and the smile he offered was even lazier than the last, holding up the cup as if tipping a proverbial hat to her, nodding his head once in greeting. The only gentleman in the entire house—to walk in or out of those front gates.

_But does he ever actually leave? Is this truly his home?_

She hardly managed a half smile, completely unwilling and apathetic, before she slumped across from him at the table.

He sipped his tea thoughtfully, watching her silently. His eyes were as black as the night itself, exactly like the Manager's, except so different it was confusing—_thoughts forever twisting in her mind it hurt to even breathe, so tightly constricted the world almost fell from its eternal suspension within space.._. They were observant, kind, and wise—while the Manager's were indifferent, cold, and guarded. A welcome difference between them. Being the older one of the two, he was often the one to give the girls of the "Flower Shop" advice, to comfort them when they forgot the reason they were there, but to also give them a harsh taste of reality, bittersweet in its own sense.

This time was no different.

There is a pause, a moment to let their minds settle properly in their places, where he tilts his head up toward the black lines that criss-cross one another every four to five feet of space, searching for a thing to say within the thin plaster of a ceiling that seemed about fit to collapse; debris and weak metal and snapping wires falling over them.

He seemed to gather his senses before she could flinch from that single image, painting the backs of her eyelids vibrantly.

"Sometimes," he said, setting down his cup slowly and leaning back to sift through his most likely tumultuous thoughts, "I feel as if the world has tainted me almost as much as I've tainted it. And no matter how long I scrub or wipe or wash or rinse my own skin, it can't go away. My sins all coat me so thickly they _become _me, and it frightens me to the point of hyperventilation." He gave a serious smile, even while it remained gentle and calm; so controlled and collected, as she could never quite be. "My world kind of loses its meaning then and I feel...out of sorts, in a sense. As if I do not, nor will I ever, belong within the fabric of time and space, as if I have no place in the grand scheme of things. As if I am nothing more than the very scum that comes to cover my every pore."

And how painfully deep those words resonated within her, a crescendo of sensations lost before she could even process it.

He smiled again, kinder. "Tea?"

She nodded and he stood, padding over to the kitchen to brew some for her. "Where is everyone, Manager-sama?" she asked, interlacing her fingers atop the table. She liked to think nothing could pass through her fingers then. As if it were an impenetrable wall of bone and flesh and stringy muscle.

_You're a morbid girl._

"I'd rather you call me Nii-san. If you would not mind."

"Onii-sama—"

"Just Nii-san is fine," he murmured, and she sighed; perhaps he assumed they were past the line of formality now. After all, he had seen far more of her than she would've rather preferred—before, when money did not matter and her world was a simple one; had it ever been?. "The girls are currently shopping. They decided that throwing a Christmas party would be fun. Sasuke is sleeping somewhere and the maintenance man is out running errands... It's mostly just you and me for now."

"I'm sorry," she mumbled, looking down.

"Hm? For what?" he asked, reentering the room with two cups steaming instead of one. "I quite enjoy your company, Haruno-chan—if you don't mind me calling you that—and it's nice having someone to talk to for a while."

"Not at all," she assured, taking the cup. "And yes, I agree."

He sat down as she wrapped her hands around the cup, letting its warmth roll through her from her fingertips alone. His eyes were carefully lowered as he rose the cup to sip, cautious for the hot tea, as he said, "You did seem rather troubled when you came in."

Was she so obvious?

The face was such a deceitful thing.

_Such an ugly thing you are._

"Everyone goes through it," he said, watching the liquid ripple within the cup, black eyes pensive and shadowed, like a particularly dangerous night, when you _must _pull your coat closer about you and you _must _hurry past open alleyways and dark neighborhoods... "The insecurities and the doubt. Endlessly questioning your sanity and recurring thoughts of helplessness... I understand."

And she believed him, drinking her tea despite the way it burned her tongue and lips, and finding solace in the odd soul that was the former owner of the Flower Shop.

~~...~~*~~...~~

It was a pattern.

At least, that's what she liked to think of it as.

Weekdays, she woke up early—perhaps at four in the morning, occasionally five if she slept in too late, when even the birds were not singing and the sun was not yet beginning its path up into the sky, which was colored black, graying, thickening—and showered very quickly, water scalding and hands working away, scrubbing her skin and washing her hair. She rubbed lotion into her skin, scented and smooth, and pulled her uniform on for the day.

(Most girls wore skirts and button-ups. She wore baggy pants and sweaters that were two sizes too big.)

She pinned up her hair into an intricate bun and tucked away what strands hung loose beneath a black wig. Some clips and some knots and she looked like a punk, so unlike who she used to be.

(Most people would come up to her, those who used to be her friends, and ask her why she'd changed so fast, in just under two simple years, and she would only shrug.)

After school, where she finished her work diligently, completing her homework between each period and answering questions as was expected of her—she really did want to go to college; she really did want to escape her life—she sprinted home, between shortcuts and brief thickets of green, and stripped off her clothing in her room, yanking the pins and clips and loosening knots until her hair was free once more, pink tumbling down her back. She showered again, an even shorter shower, and rubbed more lotion onto her skin, unscented and cold, and dressed in skirts and t-shirts and jackets (because it was getting so cold outside, with every passing day and night, spent biting her nails and loathing the dark) and gathered a smaller bag in her arms and ran all the way to the stranger side of town, where her workplace was already up and booming like a world that never went still.

During the weekdays, she had less customers. Not because they liked her less, but because Manager's brother was kind and considerate, and wanted her to focus on her studies, if only for the benefit of knowing she would not end up here all her life, until her youth was sucked away and all her happiness had trickled out from under her.

_It already is, though._

But during the weekends—and any actual break from school she had—she tended to show up at the front gates at exactly five thirty, impatient and anxious-eyed—and such _pretty _eyes she had, so green and so clear and so brilliantly locked-up and sealed—waiting for them to let her in so that she could begin her work. Diligent. Determined. Striven. And yet so desolate it broke the emptiest hearts.

And it was all just a pattern.

Caring for her hair and skin to attract those who wanted for her.

And then hiding all of that at school because she couldn't take the judgment of her peers.

Smiling coyly at herself in the mirror, practicing her appeal and testing her seductiveness.

And then frowning at those boys in her classrooms, pulling away when they came too near.

(She was afraid they knew. She was afraid they'd figure it out.)

The pattern repeated, like a cycle with no end. A circle that overlapped itself. Over and over and over again.

Bending to touch her toes, twisting and turning this way and that, forcing her body to know and to expect her flexibility to be tested. Eating only the absolute necessary and pressing a hand to her stomach to make sure its appealing flatness remained the same.

Always mindful. Always careful.

Keeping her legs spread as much as she could as she tried to ignore, and yet tried to pay attention to, the movement between her thighs. Arching her back just right and offering quick smiles when unfocused eyes met her own, dark with hunger and blurred with arousal. Hiding the grimaces and hiding the shame, hands twisting into the sheets and grasping sweaty flesh.

Unfeeling.

Detached.

Pretending.

A pattern of obligation, dedication, and simple madness.

Hate.

Want.

Disgrace.

Misfortune.

Poverty.

Fear.

Duty.

Sex.

Shame.

Disgust.

Insanity.

A pattern that repeats itself, over and over and over again.

And never changing once.

~~...~~*~~...~~

Sunday night.

She finished eating some strawberries Temari had been craving again, who had offered a bowlful as she watched frost begin to cloud the window across the front room, on the quieter side of the place. The repetition of Temari's voice, retelling theories she could not wrap her mind around and hypotheses she could not complete, was weighing down on her, on her shoulders and head and spine and nerves... Tenten slept, beside that same window, where the sky was black and the trees seemed to tremble, so bare and skinny without their leafs to cover them they reminded her of a younger her. Nii-san hummed from within the kitchen, steaming some buns and brewing some tea, fiddling and thinking and pondering.

The Manager was entering the room, hands tucked within the family haori and smiling blankly at her, eyes hidden behind those dark glasses. "You have a customer," he said simply.

At her sigh of displeasure, Nii-san chimed, "Last one for today, Sakura-chan. And then you can rest all you want." His reassuring nod from the doorway of the kitchen prompted her to drop the core of the strawberry back into the bowl and stand, combing down her hair and crossing the room.

She prepares, mentally, for the pattern to commence once more.

Temari continued to mumble her thoughts aloud, and she heard the Manager chuckle dryly behind her.

"Thirty minutes," he said.

It seemed like forever to her.

~~...~~*~~...~~

She didn't know how many times his innocence would be further tarnished by her, but she didn't care to know.

His hands were curled within the cloth of the kimono, face pressing into her shoulder—_such soft little sounds you make—_as if any noise he made would break his concentration. And perhaps it would, because how hard could he be trying to keep himself from moving too hard or too quick? How much of his strength did he need to hold her so tenderly?

He'd shown up every day, asking her to answer his question, but never quite getting far enough to make her.

A man is a man, after all.

This a pattern, and he is just another string sewn within the quilt.

(Red like blood, green like spring, white like snow.)

He is hard within her, long enough to reach a place that made her toes curl without her meaning to and her fingers grasp a little harder at his shoulders, but not as thick as others were—the others who had taken her just a few short hours ago, and would take her long before he left her mind. He pressed close to her, mouth sucking on that one little spot on her shoulder, another mark to add to her disorderly list, and his hips snap forward, downward, deeper inside, seeking his release.

But also pleading for hers.

She smiles ruefully into the air, breaths pitching and moans hitching—_pretending, pretending, pretending—_and wonders if she should tell him that not all kinds of sex end perfectly.

There is a beginning. Touches. Stimulation. Arousal. Excitement.

There is an end. Sweaty. Exhausted. Sticky. Contented.

And that is it. No happiness. No peace. No adoration.

Not like they had been told since they were children anyway, when the story comes to that inevitable _happily ever after_.

He would grow tired of it—with her.

Or she would graduate—move away.

Swept away by meaningless touches—_all for the money_.

Swept away by her freedom—_such wonderful promises._

His sounds are soft in her ear now, and he is thrusting, thrusting, thrusting, deeper and deeper and harder and faster, touching and groping and tweaking and kissing—her wetness, her softness, her flesh and her hair and her face and her ears and then—

—his mouth was on hers.

Hot.

Gentle.

Tender.

Kindly kissing away all of her doubts and fears and sadness.

The world is bleached of its color.

The world teeters on collapse.

The world loses its meaning.

And then—

"I love you."

~~...~~*~~...~~

"A penny for your thoughts?"

The flakes flutter down to earth silently beyond a dusty window, marred with fingerprints and smudges, streaks of skin across glass from any number of situations left best in the very corners of the mind. The silence was deafening until a deep voice spoke from a mere six feet away, the sounds of sex down the hall echoing like a tinkling ball across her memories, where grass was greener and days were brighter, before he slides the door shut and sits across from her. A lethargic smile. A nice smile. It coaxes her thoughts from her and lets her be comforted.

A feat no one else could quite accomplish.

"It never meant anything to me before."

He knows immediately what she means, and his smile fades slowly. Evaporates. Disintegrates. Vanishing before her very eyes—and what _pretty _eyes she had, so wide and alert and yet veiled and impenetrable. And a look of understanding is there as he shifts and sits beside her, dark cloth rustling around him, over his skin that she never saw and never quite wanted to see. And she finds solace in his proximity, the smell of aftershave and tea, of premature wisdom and never ending compassion.

"It doesn't happen often. But when it does, it hurts the most."

"I can't stop it?"

"You can only hide from reality for so long before it catches up to you."

It is the fact that she wants it to not mean anything anymore, and the fact that his eyes were blacker than the nights she feared and the skies she hated, that made her pull his hand, large and spindly and calloused, pale as a blank sheet of paper and riddling with possibilities and untold stories, between her thighs, which quivered with an uncertainty and fear she knew all too well, hoping and praying—and _God I never pray but please, I can't take it like this anymore—_that it will lose its meaning.

He knows what it is that she is seeking and he knows what it is that she wants.

Never had a man been so reluctant to take her.

Long and thin fingers curl up into her, into a heat she hated and regretted (and wished _oh God, why can't I be a boy_?) stroking and pumping and sliding the rough pads against the spots no one else ever bothered to find—_we're all selfish, aren't we?—_and they twisted and they turned and they pushed and they danced until liquid, hot and sweet and sticky-smooth, trickled down his hand to pool in his palm, trail down his wrist and drip onto the floor, her back arching and her mouth opening in a silent cry.

—_A silent cry for help_.

_God, just take this feeling away_.

The only gentleman in the house, and he asks her, again and again, if this is what she wants.

What else could she possibly say?

_You're a fucked up kid, girl. Just like your family._

He is long and is thick but _he doesn't reach that place inside her_, and he thrusts, soft and regrettably, and then harder because she is begging him to, pleading and begging he make it mean nothing again. He is so much taller than her, so much stronger and leaner and bigger, and he cradles her as he hovers over her, rocking inside of her.

A painful sting of reality blurring with the deceitful caress of a dream.

In, out, in, out, in, out.

No kissing or touching, just sex.

In, out, in, out, in, out.

_And there, eyes just like hers and her mother's and her aunt's and her—and her—staring right at her; a wicked grin and poisonous whispers..._

In, out, in, out, in, out.

Robotic and stiff and unwilling—the both of them.

His arms cording around her, hips slapping against hers; slick, wet noises between them. Soft pants and stifled grunts, pulling her up to meet him halfway, pounding and pounding and pounding—but never quite reaching that spot.

He knows and he sees and he understands and that is the part that hurts the most, right then.

He is only trying to do as she asks, and she sees it in his eyes, how they were tight with worry and how his lips parted to ask her, once again, if this is really what she wanted.

Like the big brother she never had.

_This is wrong._

_This is wrong._

_This is—_

The memories come tumbling down and she begins to sob, into his arm, into the sleeve of the kimono he had not taken off—hers was still on, too, because she couldn't take him seeing her skin as much as she couldn't take seeing his, and _he knew_—pleading that he forgive her.

_You're such an ugly, sick girl. Just like your family._

"It hurts," she cries, and realizes he stopped moving, not trembling, not wanting, brushing down her hair with his fingers and mumbling kind things in her ears. "It hurts so much."

"It always will."

~~...~~*~~...~~

She was nine.

She hid in a closet, afraid of the people outside, cackling and shouting and writhing—what she doesn't know then was that it was just a party, and that's what people did in parties; they laughed and they yelled and they danced. But she was scared of those things because she wanted to find her mommy and she couldn't, not anywhere in the crowds and not anywhere in the house; not in the rooms and not in the darkness around her.

Suffocating. Endless.

She was nine, on the brink of ten, when her uncle finds her—her mommy's big brother that liked to buy her dolls for her birthdays and always smiled at her from across the room—curled up in the corner of the hallway closet, dressed in a pink dress with a flower in her hair; the epitome of innocence ready to be stolen away. He is drunk, she can smell it, somehow knows it even though no one in her house ever drank—_she didn't think, but uncle never lies, does he?—_and he shuts the door behind him, enclosing them in darkness once more. Except it's too stuffy, too full, and too much for her to take all at once.

Painful. Eternal.

She was nine, and so scared, and he says things in her ear that makes her heart pound in fear and her breath hard to catch. And he is touching places she doesn't understand. And he is kissing places she shouldn't be kissed. And he is—and he is—

It is excruciating.

It is agony.

It is hell.

It is disgusting.

It is wrong.

And it goes on until she is fourteen, at every party, in the same closet. Silent.

She is silent. Forever silent.

She was nine, now eighteen, and she hates sex. She hates men. She hates her body. She hates the world.

She just wants freedom.

And it's there, in the eyes of an innocent boy—_the innocence she stole, like it had been stolen from her—_promising her that she didn't need to be scared anymore. That she wasn't the same little girl. That she wasn't who she was told she was.

That she wasn't as fucked up as her family.

And the question that sits at the back of her head, in that neglected and dusty and detested space at the back of her mind, is there to shred through her heart and her soul.

"Are you afraid?"

~~...~~*~~...~~

She never thought to avoid him at school.

It never occurred to her that he was a student at their Academy—but he was sixteen, after all. Why wouldn't he be?—and it never occurred to her that she would see him outside the walls of her workplace. It always began and ended there in that room that had been assigned to her and all her clients to do what they may. It never went beyond the small space of twelve feet by twelve feet, oak wooden floors, a narrow bed with grayish sheets that may have been white at some point, and a paper door with simple flowers printed upon it. When he stepped out those paper doors, and they slid shut softly, guided by the Manager and his empty smile, it was over.

He was gone and she would not see him until the next time.

So it never occurred to her that she would meet him outside of her workplace. And she certainly never thought she would see him at school.

School was nothing more than an obligation, of course, and her sliver of hope of escaping the life that had been built around her.

No client was supposed to find her there.

Except he did. And he recognized her, despite her efforts to hide herself.

No amount of clothing and no amount of clips and pins and knots would be enough to hide her from him.

But, even as she drew away and hurried around a corner, the hallways too filled with fellow students for him to follow so easily, she found it didn't really matter. Whatever split second of fear that had spiked up within her didn't mean anything.

There was no judgment in his eyes.

~~...~~*~~...~~

The dark lenses flashed. "Sixty minutes."

A frown. "So long?"

Lips pulling up into a lazy smile. "Don't worry. It won't be so bad."

A pale finger pushed the glasses up a sharp nose. "It's the last one for today."

Soft mumbling and endless strings of thoughts and theories. "A human's desire for sex is fueled by an almost animal-like sense at the forefront of the brain, where our instincts have become underdeveloped by time and growth—the accelerated expansion of our knowledge has in turn expanded the sizes of our brains and decreased the need for reflexes such as—"

"—When you're finished, we can eat dinner. I've made curry and rice."

"He's waiting in your room now."

The mumbling ceased. "A regular, is it, now?"

"Oh, yes. Haruno-chan has become a favorite, I believe."

"I expected that."

"You should go before the time is up. He might not pay as much."

"Manager-sama, you greedy boy."

"I'll save a plate and cup for you."

She turned and walked down the hall, yanking at the knot around her waist as she went. She would waste no time talking. She would not let him slip past her defenses again. She could not stand that kind of pain. She would be quick about this. She would wear him out before he could get a single word in edgewise. She would make him finish and let the Manager guide him out of the front gates like usual and that would be that—and then she would avoid him at school, and she would do the same if he visited again, and she would eventually graduate and she would be gone forever—

He was here to have sex and that was what she'd give him.

(Except it wasn't that simple.)

She stepped in and slid the door shut behind her, already moving her hands up to slip off the kimono completely and pull him into bed, but his own hands stopped her. And such warm hands they were, a relief from the cold air beginning to seep in through the slightest gaps of the walls and the floorboards, plentiful as they were, that her skin was chilled and her nipples were already hard and aching for warmth, warmth he offered now at the little touches.

She would not let him deny her of that.

His crimson hair was soft in her hands and she leaned up to kiss him—once, twice, before he pulled away and pushed her back down until her feet were flat against the floor once more.

"Please," he whispered, and the pain she found in his gaze was one she recognized, and yet didn't. Old and yet new. Hers and yet his. How puzzling he was. What an enigma he held in that agonized gaze. "I can't do this anymore."

"What does it matter?" she demanded, but didn't pull away. His warmth pulsed through her, soothing and solid and good. Another entity to satisfy and yet he wouldn't allow it. How unnerving he was. "It's just sex."

He shook his head. No, it's never been just sex to him. How foolish. "You're the only one I've ever been with."

Her heart skipped a beat. She wasn't just some woman. She wasn't just a girl.

Not to him, anyway.

How ignorant. How endearing.

But the hole that opened up beneath her threatened to swallow her whole, and she didn't want to be dragged away by it.

She backed away. "I can't."

"Please—"

"I _can't._" She hugged herself, shutting her eyes from him. Trying to escape him like she tried to escape her life; inevitably and ultimately useless. "I can't love you."

Not good enough.

Not strong enough.

_I don't deserve you._

He reached over and caught her shoulder, pulling her forward suddenly. His mouth latched onto hers, lips moving almost pleadingly, titillatingly, before she snapped away.

The snow and wind whipped across the shingles of the Flower Shop and she felt her world begin to crumble down with it, shutters slamming shut and her reality coming to a halt..

"I am afraid."

_Of pain._

_Of love._

_Of you._

—_You're a fucked up girl. Just like your family_.

But his eyes don't judge her.

~~...~~*~~...~~

**A.N.****: This story is about an eighteen year old girl who had been molested as a child and lives in a broken home, and in order to escape her life, she needs to save money for college. She does this by selling her body, obviously. She got the job from her classmate—it's not hard to figure out who it is—when she couldn't find a better paying job that will get her the money fast enough to fulfill her goal. She works there for a while and observes the way the others work; how the women have their own interesting and clashing personalities and how they're so much more than what they seem to be; how the "Manager" is so plastic on the surface, but human on the inside; how his older brother seems much wiser than his years say and how he cares for them as if they were his little siblings... **

**She continues to work until a sixteen year old boy comes to her one night, and questions her way of life, asking her, "Are you afraid?" And she doesn't know what he means. And then she suddenly begins to realize who she's become and what she's doing. **

**She, like others in her position, detaches herself from the situation because she actually _doesn't _find sex enjoyable, obviously, and that fact doesn't change even _when _it's with Gaara, as you would assume it would. **

**Happy ending? No. But not all would have them.**

**I actually ended it there because I thought maybe I would make this into an actual story—I've played with the idea before, with chapter four, for example, or chapter two—but I don't know.**

**Anyway! Please review! And thanks for reading this chapter!**


End file.
